The Iranian leaders who need to come up with a plan to stop Trump

The Iranian regime has installed an interim leadership team to fill the void left by the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and almost all the senior members of the regime.

Iran has had only two supreme leaders, with Khamenei serving as the head of state and the spiritual head of the country for 37 years. The 86-year-old ruler of the Islamic Republic was killed in a joint US-Israeli airstrike on Saturday, triggering an unprecedented leadership crisis.

The succession process is handled by the Assembly of Experts, with Article 111 of the constitution allowing a temporary council to take over the duties of the supreme leader.

With US President Donald Trump saying he is open to talks with the new team in charge of Iran, any hope of Tehran finding a way out of the conflict now officially rests on the shoulders of three men: Iran’s President, Masoud Pezeshkian; the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei; and a senior member of the Guardian Council, Ayatollah Alireza Arafi.

Masoud Pezeshkian

The ninth president of Iran, Pezeshkian was elected in 2024 after registering to run for the post on two previous occasions. In 2013, he withdrew after former president Hashemi Rafsanjani entered the race. In 2021, the vote was heavily skewed in favour of cleric Ebrahim Raisi – widely expected to succeed Khamenei, Raisi died in a helicopter crash in 2024.

Pezeshkian’s tenure so far has been an unhappy one. Even before the joint US-Israeli military action uprooted the established regime leadership, he was struggling to keep order in the country.

A former heart surgeon, he has had to deal with the country’s crumbling economy, falling living standards and the destruction of its nuclear facilities last year. And has famously downplayed his ability to influence the regime, once remarking, “I’m a doctor, not a politician”.

In a speech on February 11 to mark the anniversary of the 1979 revolution, Pezeshkian struck a conciliatory tone. He apologised for the brutal crackdown on recent protests, insisting Iran was seeking only peaceful use of nuclear energy.

But the rhetoric soured as negotiations between the US and Iran stalled. A week before the military action that killed Khamenei, Pezeshkian said on state TV that Iran would not bow to global pressure on its nuclear talks with the United States.

“World powers are lining up to force us to bow our heads … but we will not bow our heads despite all the problems that they are creating for us,” he said.

Pezeshkian is distinguished from his presidential predecessors due to his support for a nuclear agreement with the West and also for his support for social reforms in response to the Woman, Life, Freedom movement. The protest movement began in Iran after the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, a Kurd who was arrested by the Iranian “Guidance Patrol” – otherwise known as the morality police – for not wearing her hijab correctly.

Despite this, Pezeshkian is still considered a loyalist to the regime of the Islamic Republic and had voiced his unwavering support for Khamenei as early as this year.

Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei

Mohseni-Ejei is the head of Iran’s judiciary, a post he was given by Khamenei in 2021. He also served as Iran’s intelligence minister from 2005 to 2009 and later as deputy chief justice.

A senior religious leader and a regime loyalist, Moseni-Ejei is known to be closely associated with the ultra-conservative wing of the government.

In response to the protests in Iran that erupted in late December, Moseni-Ejei took a hardline response and promised “no leniency” towards demonstrators, labelling them “rioters”.

He also claimed the US and Israel encouraged political unrest in Iran to destabilise the nation after Trump urged protesters to take to the streets in defiance of the Islamic Republic.

Ayatollah Alireza Arafi

As a representative of the 12-member Guardian Council, which has a substantial say in how the country is run, Arafi is arguably the most powerful of the three, and has plenty of experience in wielding power.

The 67-year-old cleric is fluent in Arabic and English, and in Iran’s religious establishment, he was second only to Khamenei.

Joining the interim leadership team added to Arafi’s influence as director of Iran’s national Islamic seminary network, a vetting member of the powerful Guardian Council, and a sitting member of the Assembly of Experts, which chooses the next supreme leader.

As a regime insider, Arafi maintains the ideological roots laid down by the previous supreme leaders, and is widely seen as a safe pair of hands to manage the process of installing a successor to Khamenei.

Powerbroker: Ali Larijani

Another figure who has so far evaded the US-Israeli military assaults may play a key role in shaping the immediate future of Iran. The national security chief, Ali Larijani has been a critical cog in the regime’s political machine for decades and is one of the few living senior officials connected to Khamenei.

As secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Larijani’s job has been to make the decisions that safeguard the Islamic Republic’s sovereignty. He was the official who commanded Iranian paramilitary forces to crush the recent protests, and there has been speculation that he had been chosen by Khamenei as his successor.

However, Larijani cannot formally succeed Khamenei because Iran’s constitution stipulates that the supreme leader must be a senior cleric.

He has maintained a defiant tone against the US as the conflict escalates, saying that Iran is no longer interested in talks.

Sixty-seven-year-old Larijani started his career as a member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and had various stints in regime operations, including as Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator and running Iran’s state-controlled broadcaster, Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB).

He has unsuccessfully run for the role of the president twice since 2020, but has been a key bridge between the regime and international allies China and Russia. In 2021, he was tasked with negotiating a multibillion-dollar, 25-year strategic deal with China and has served as Khamenei’s personal envoy to Russia.

With almost 30 years as a regime faithful, Larijani’s profile has increased over the past 12 months. As the established order is in disarray, his experience makes him a key powerbroker in the coming succession process.