Mick Hartley

Firstly, we don’t actually know what ideological posture the regime will develop post-war, and noone knows anything about the new Supreme Leader Mojtaba, because he still hasn’t been seen or heard since his elevation. Secondly, is it even possible to be even more radical than Khamenei version 1? This is a guy who was developing an illicit nuclear program, funding terrorism throughout the Middle East, bore ultimate responsibility for numerous atrocities including October 7 and the massacre of 30,000 Iranian protesters just this year, conducted pogroms against the Baha’i religious minority, presided over the second highest rate of executions anywhere in the world… I could go on. Everything justified and explained away by recourse to radical ideology.
Whatever iteration we get next might be a different kind of regime, perhaps with greater input from IRGC than clerical elites. However, Im not sure its even possible for it to become more radical than it already is.

Well…that’s the line being pushed in Tehran. See this MEMRI TV clip, for instance, where Tehran mayor Alireza Zakani claims that post-war Iran “will reach such an exalted peak that it will prepare humanity for the coming of the Mahdi”. “Inshallah” – god willing – responds the show’s host. “This will definitely happen”.