Khamenei’s Strategy to Dominate the Middle East Will Outlive Him

Excerpt

Earlier this month, Iran conducted elections for its parliament and the Assembly of Experts, a body of elderly clerics nominally responsible for choosing the next supreme leader. The massive disqualification of candidates in both elections by the regime caused many Iranian voters to ignore these races. That does not mean the West should ignore them, in particular the election for the assembly, which will anoint the next supreme leader.

The ideologically narrow composition of that body shows that the current supreme leader, the 84-year-old Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has decided to prepare for his succession by ensuring that his choice won’t be derailed by dissent within the ruling elite. He has also thereby guaranteed that Iran’s proxy conflicts and nuclear aspirations—assuming that the regime doesn’t get the bomb before he dies—will continue to roil the Middle East.

Reuel Marc Gerecht is a resident scholar at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and former CIA officer. Ray Takeyh is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of The Last Shah: America, Iran, and the Fall of the Pahlavi Dynasty.