Chosen by War: The Rise of Iran’s New Supreme Leader

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- From New York Times, I'm Michael Babaro. This is The Daily. (upbeat music) - We got some breaking news out of Iran.

We are hearing for the first time

from the new Supreme Leader of Iran. - Today's statement dismissed any hope of Iran backing down. He says, quote, "Adventying the blood of your martyrs "is a top priority,

"and that attacks on Gulf Arab neighbors will continue." At the heart of the Iranian regime's defiant stance toward the United States and Israel in this war is its new Supreme Leader. Moshtaba Hamanai, the son of the regime's long time ruler.

- He said that all US bases should immediately be closed in their region and he says that those bases will be attacked. - You went on to say that the straight of Hormuz should remain closed as a-- - Today.

- My colleague, Farnaz Faseeki, on the extraordinary behind the scenes shocking that led to his selection and the growing consensus that the US and Israeli strategy motivated Iran to replace one hard-line leader

with another. It's Tuesday, March 17th. - Farnaz, welcome back to the show. I just want to say at the outset that there are moments when our colleagues

because of their area of expertise just become indispensable to the daily and one of those people now because you know Iran and its government inside and out. So thank you for making time for us.

- Thank you for having me, Michael. - Your latest line of reporting has been focused on Iran's new Supreme Leader, Mushtaba Hormonee, the son of the assassinated Supreme Leader. And Mushtaba Hormonee is filling a job

that is both essential for the regime's survival

and arguably now the most dangerous job in the world. And we want to talk to you about what his selection means for Iran and the war and the behind-the-scenes process by which he was chosen. So where do you think we should start?

“- I think we should start by acknowledging”

that Mushtaba Hormonee's rise as the third Supreme Leader came as a surprise to even Iran watchers and insiders in Iran. Although he was his father's son and had been working closely with him in his office,

the fact that he would become a Supreme Leader and succeed his father was not straightforward. It wasn't necessarily predestined and it's an irony because the Islamic Revolution came about so there would be an end to monarchy rule

and power being passed from father to son. - Just explain that. - Well, these Islamic Revolution in 1979 came about as a result of this movement to topple the Shah and thousands of years of monarchy

where power was handed from father to son with this idea that power would go back to the people. Even when the first Supreme Leader,

the founding father of the revolutionary Hormonee died,

power didn't go to his son or to his relatives. It went to then the president, the former heir to the Hormonee.

“So that's why it's an irony to now have his son appointed”

as his successor. - Fasings. So the choice of Hormonee's son, Mushtaba Hormonee, you're saying, is in many ways of violation of the revolution's core spirit.

So talk to us about how that ever would have occurred over the past many days. - When I talked to sources in Iran about the appointment and selection of Mushtaba Hormonee, they described it as a succession war,

as various political factions, generals from the revolutionary guards, powerful people like the former spy chief of the guards, and clerics, all lying for power to have the candidate that they preferred in the robe.

It was explained to me as sort of the Islamic Republic's version of Game of Thrones, lying for power, different factions, competing to have their favorite candidate in, and really a war of succession.

We'll describe these main factions

“in this selection process, who they are and what they want.”

- So constitutionally, in Iran, the assembly of experts, which is a body of 88 elected senior clerics, has the task of appointing, supervising, and removing a supreme leader. So this is the body that had to get together,

debate and vote for who would basically succeed, Iotala Hormonee. But it's much more complicated than that, right?

There's always like back door and back channeling powers

and different factions trying to influence the vote of the clerics. We had on one side the moderates and the pragmatics, led by the head of the National Security Council, Alila Rujani and President Pesacheon in this camp.

And they were sort of arguing that this is really an extraordinary moment in Iran. We're at war with the United States and Israel. We've had months and months of upheaval with protests and whatnot, and maybe it's time to put a new face

on the regime and pick a candidate that would, at least signal to the world and to Iranian public, that we're thinking of moderating our policies or we're thinking of reform. - So basically recognize that the war

is a fundamental breaking point. It's a moment from which the country cannot really go back that a change is required here. - Exactly. The war don't forget was preceded with massive street

uprisings and protests by Iranian saying, we want an end of this regime. So while they can't really satisfy that desire,

“I think the moderates were arguing will at least”

maybe this power vacuum we have from the assassination of the Iotola allows us a space to try to steer the country in a different direction. - And for now, it's who do these moderates? And I want to be careful with that word,

because moderates with anotheocracy may not resemble moderates outside of a theocracy, but who do they look to specifically as they try to make this choice? - Well, they were looking at several candidates.

One of them was former President Hassan Rouhani. He is mostly a centrist politician who served eight years as president and before that had very senior leadership roles in security apparatus.

He let the 2015 negotiations, nuclear negotiations with the United States and the world powers. And his increasingly become vocal in giving speeches about how the status quo was not tenable.

So the second candidate was Hassan Rouhani, the grandson of the founding father of the revolution, who was clearly identified as politics as reformist and his part of the reformist faction. And then there was a third candidate

who is not very well known in the public, Ali Razat, Arofi. He has religious credentials. He ran a very successful charity, religious charity. And he was sort of considered as someone

who would be easy to manage because he didn't really have experience in security or policy or defense. And sort of would fall somewhere in the middle. - So all three of these say to the world

to varying degrees, turn the page

on the revolutionary hard line Iranian ethos

that has dominated since 1979. And that was basically the idea. Now with the caveat, as you mentioned, that these are all still part of the Islamic Republic's establishment and they are loyal

to the ideology of the Islamic Republic, but they have varying shades of how to pragmatically and practically practice that and enforce it. And I think if they had gone this way, they would have at least signaled that maybe we're open to change,

maybe we're even open to scaling down hostilities with the United States. But that's not how it went.

“- Clearly, okay, well, what about the hard line faction?”

- So the hard line faction, particularly the revolutionary guards courts, they were interested in making sure that, first of all, at wartime, there would be no concessions made, no surrendering to US demands that sort of the policies

and strategies that the Daitola and the guards had defined would hold as the war continued.

The revolutionary guards are very powerful in Iran.

They're represented in politics, they control the economy, they are more powerful than the military, they are me itself and they're now in charge of basically commanding this war because they're in charge of defending Iran's borders.

So for the guards, the election or the appointment of the supreme leader was also an existential choice

and their grip on power remains.

“- And who is in this hard line faction's pool of candidates?”

For supreme leader? - This pool wanted most of a harmony. Yunanimously, he was the candidate of choice. They viewed him as a very close ally as a reincarnation, if you may, of Ayatolam Mamanai,

who would continue his policies and give the guards a free hand, particularly in running this war. And to this end, they were willing to toss out this whole idea of power should not be hereditorial

in this Islamic Republic. - Interesting, they just sort of said, that's a formality we don't care about in the middle of this conflict who cares.

- Right, I mean, they basically said,

this is wartime, the circumstances are extreme and are former supreme leader, they consider him a martyr. And a lot of the anger and resentment against President Trump

“and Prime Minister Netanyahu was being fueled”

into the sense of defiance, right? A lot of experts I talked to you in Iran and outside of Iran said that look if Hamanai had died a natural death, most of us would have a lot of resistance,

but now the guards and the hardliners could argue that look, you know, they murdered our supreme leader and who is the close thing we can get to him, his son, who not only physically looks like him,

but also worked in his office. And as far as we know, has the same ideological beliefs and policies. - Okay, so with all this in mind, how does the formal process of choosing

Mustafa Hamanai ultimately unfolded? You describe it as filled with intrigue and drama came with thrones. What does it look like? - The process of selecting the supreme leader

began almost immediately after Ayutala Hamanai was killed in air strikes on the first day of the war. And there was some back channeling and influencing and whatnot. So, you know, when they were debating,

they were like fused with this idea that we have to be defiant, finding somebody who's a new face is not our priority. What's our priority is to tell the world

that we continue our revolutionary ideology?

So, much about immersion is the front runner. They took a vote and they told the government, now we have a supreme leader, it's much tougher. And they were supposed to announce it the next morning at dawn at state television.

But that plan kind of fell apart. - Why? - Well, first of all, as soon as it was leaked and we reported it, it was in New York Times a scoop that he's emerged as a leading candidate.

Both President Trump and Israel's defense minister threatened to eliminate the next successor to the supreme leader. So, Iranians pause, they thought that maybe this is not the right time to announce most of us as the supreme leader

because it could threaten his life. - Well. - And this provides space for the moderates to launch an offensive to try to get the assembly to rescind the vote and redo the vote, right?

They're like, okay, now it hasn't been announced publicly. Maybe we have some time to try to now lobby and jockey for power and try to get them to change their minds. - Right, and if you needed evidence that moderation was perhaps the right course,

the fact that Israel and the U.S. were saying, we're gonna kill this hard-line successor to the last I had told him, might fuel your case.

“So, how close to the moderates get to unraveling this choice?”

- Well, first of all, they needed a really good excuse, right?

It wasn't gonna be easy to get them to change their mind. So, they called for the Assembly's leadership council or leadership committee to meet them in person. And at that meeting, representatives of the moderates put a card on the table that really stunned the clerics.

They brought two of his father's closest eights, his chief of staff, and one of his top senior military advisors to testify to the Assembly of clerics, that his father, the late Iotolochamele, had told them he had said he does not want his son to succeed.

- Oh, wow, there are people willing to say essentially under oath that the last Supreme Leader does not want his son to be the next Supreme Leader. - That's exactly what happened, and it wasn't done. - And that's kind of the word of God.

- Right, and it wasn't just anybody. It was literally his two closest allies. And then they throw another hurdle. They bring a letter in writing from Mr. Harmon A, that they say, "This is his will, and it was sealed."

it says that I don't want any of my family members to become the Supreme Leader. - This really is Game of Thrones. - It's totally Game of Thrones. So there are all these things being thrown at them,

“saying you need to reconsider, like we have evidence,”

that suggests this is not what I call a harmony once, right? So the hardliners and the generals

in the revolutionary guards, here about this,

and they mobilize also and launch a counter-offensive to convince the clerics to vote for most of a harmony. So the generals and a former spy chief of the guards will same-try it, personally called members of the assembly and asked them to meet virtually and have an emergency vote

and announce much to us later. And that is what happens. On Sunday, March 8th, this assembly held a final vote and much to have a harmony received the two-third majority of votes you needed.

- Essentially elected for a second, time, but this time, it's stock. - Yes. - It's stock, they announce it, and seal the deal. (upbeat music) - You know, given the sequence of events,

you've just described and all of this extraordinary polyticking and everyone trying to undermine the other side, that it feels like we only get this person as supreme leader because of the unique circumstances were in the US and Israel being at war with Iran.

“- Right, I mean, I think that if Iran was not at war,”

right now and under attack by US and Israel and if I had to law a harmony had not been killed by air strikes, most of us would probably not be the supreme leader. - And so now, of course, the question is who is this new supreme leader and is he as hard-line as those who supported him

and the moderate who feared him say that he is? - Most of the harmony is a mysterious figure, Michael. - He hasn't really been in the public realm.

He's always operated in the shadows of power.

And since he was named the supreme leader, no one has hurt his voice, no one has seen him. He's only issued two statements, but I've spent the past two weeks talking to sources in Iran who know him or who have met him to try to figure out who he is

and how he will roll around. (upbeat music) - Or do I back?

“- I'm Jonathan Swan, I'm a White House supporter for the New York Times.”

I have a pretty unsantermental view of what we do. Our job as report is to dig out information that powerful people don't want published. To take you into rooms that you would not otherwise have access to to understand how some of the big decisions shaping our country

are being made. And then painstakingly to go back and check with sources, check with public documents, make sure the information is correct. There's not something you can outsource to AI. There's no robot that can go and talk to someone

who was in the situation room and find out what was really said in order to get actually original information that's not public that requires human sources and we actually need journalists to do that.

So as you may have gathered from this long riff, I'm asking you to consider subscribing to the New York Times. Independent journalism is important and without you, we simply can't do it. - So for us, tell us as much as you have come to understand

about this new Supreme Leader who besides enjoying the support of hardliners remains such a mystery still. - Most of a company was born in 1969. He was nine years old when the Islamic Revolution came about and the bureaucracy was established.

And as his father sort of rose in the ranks of the revolution all the way to becoming the president and then as the second Supreme Leader, much tougher also grew up in that very ideological, very religious early years of the revolution.

- He's kind of witnessing the as you described it in previous episodes the institutionalization of the revolution from idea to day-to-day governments. - Exactly, but he's not just an observer as he grows up, it becomes a teenager.

He participates in revolutionary Iran.

About a year after the revolution, Saddam Hussein invaded Iran and it started an eight-year bloody war between Iran and Iraq. And many young men in Iran who were supporters of the revolution volunteered as teenagers,

some as young as 13 and 14 to go to the battlefields.

He volunteered as a soldier when he was 17 years old and went to the front lines of the war.

“And he is in a brigade where many of the current generals”

and senior leadership of Iran's military were also in that Italian. So he bonds with these people and gets veteran credentials as someone who was willing to sort of leave the comfort

of his home and go fight.

And that's where many of his powerful alliances

with the current generals start in the battlefields of the Iran Iraq war. - Right, he has real street cred. He fought a war that, in theory, the son of someone as powerful as his dad,

doesn't necessarily need to fight it. - Right, so after the war, he moves to home. The seat of Shia seminaries and one of the centers of the Shia faith to study and become a Shia jurist

and a cleric and a scholar.

“And he gets married to the daughter of a political family.”

He sort of climbs the ranks of religious hierarchy. And he starts teaching advanced Islamic jurisprudence, which is a level of religious teaching that you can only teach if you yourself are an advanced cleric in the Shia hierarchy.

So he's holding these classes in home in the seminaries and the classes become very popular. Lots of young clerics are signing up. - Which I should say suggest a certain level of charisma, perhaps?

- Well, it's hard to say, I guess, like in the eyes of his students, maybe he was charismatic and popular, but we haven't really seen him in public to really be able to judge that. So he then stops the teachings

because apparently there were oversubscribed into popular and moves to Tehran and enters his father's close political circle

“and starts building alliances with very powerful,”

generals and security people. And basically, it comes in charge of managing the security and military administrative things of his father's office.

He is very close to the former revolutionary guards

intelligence chief, Hussain Type, and to General Muhammad Bakr-Kalibov, a commander of the revolutionary guards who is now the speaker of the parliament and the three of them, according to my sources,

would hold meetings once a week and there they would discuss and strategize the policies and sort of the plans that they wanted and that went from who they wanted to see elected in our face to the way that they would want

crackdowns on dissidents and other security matters of the state. - So he's quite clearly becoming an extremely powerful behind the scenes figure in his own right. I'm curious if you have come across any specific examples of actions he took decisions he made

that help us understand how he viewed that power and used it. - One of the examples that we know of and many people I've talked to point out is the 2009 presidential election of former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

- In Iran, where President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has declared victory, he's actually speaking. - People especially are angered by what they believe to be a rigged election that defeated the reform candidate Mir Hussain Musavi.

- Where the election results were contested. - I just can't believe this election results. I'm so furious, said Ashbali. - And it started a movement called the Green Movement. - An outpouring of anger like this

hasn't been seen in more than a decade. - We really saw the first real big nationwide protests of people coming out and saying the elections were rigged. - Iran's supreme leader is calling for restraint, saying protesters will be held responsible

for any additional chaos. - And from the interviews that I've had with people who are in Iran and remember that, say that much of a harmony played a role in what they alleged was rigging of the elections

in Mr. Ahmadinejad's favor and also say police fought back by firing two guests in water cannons. - The former clad police attacking protesters from the backs of speeding motorcycle. - Encouraging and orchestrating the crackdowns,

particularly his ties to the Bessiege paramilitary

playing clothes, militia of the revolutionary guards.

- He went right groups agree more than 300 remain in detention and at least 30 are dead. - Kind of authorizing them to go to the streets and really crush the protests as they were. - So this really underscores why the hardliners

would have looked to Mustafa Hamanayee and said, "This guy is with us, he's our guy." - The story of most of us rise very much parallels, the story of the revolutionary guards rise and control of Iran politically, militarily and economically.

Their stories are intertwined. But also, as much as he operated in the shadows of power and gained prominence in his father's world,

“he was not really reaching out to the public, right?”

If you're thinking one day, you're gonna be the supreme leader of Iran and ruling over at least your own constituents,

never mind the population that criticizes the regime

but sort of that 20% that's the core constituents, he never made any public outreach. He never really came to attend a Friday prayer or deliver a public speech or attend any sort of social, the religious event.

He was sort of just someone really a mysterious figure in the backgrounds and backgrounds of power. So it makes even more remarkable that suddenly he is now their religious leader where they don't really even know him.

- Right, and that has been reinforced and you mentioned this earlier by the fact that since his appointment as supreme leader as Ayatola, he has given the public pretty much nothing to work with, no speech, no video, nothing kind of tangible

or emotional to say to the Iranian public,

“this is who I am and you should believe in me,”

which is a little bit baffling. - Well, there are two reasons for that as far as we can tell from my reporting. One is that Moshabba's injured, he at least has injuries to his legs, so he may not be in top physical shape

to record a video. The other reason is that we know that his number one on Israel's target list at Iranians know that and they say that we will not put him in front of a video because they could go locate him and assassinate him.

- I mean, everything you're describing here collectively, his entire journey up through the ranks of the regime's government, his role in the military, his crackdowns on demonstrators, and this latest attack, which has killed his father,

all of that suggests that he will be a hardliner, that this is not a hardliner who's gonna surprise us all in a few weeks or months necessarily and become a reformer. And that seems to have been manifested by Iran's decision-making since his appointment.

I mean, Iran has been nothing if not defiant and aggressive in its public statements and it's shut down of the straight of horror moves. So we seem to be looking at perhaps and even more hardline figure than his father?

- This is a man who's father, wife, and son were killed by the United States in Israel. So we have to think about whether revenge is going to drive any of his policy decisions, right? - In the two statements written statements

that we've seen from him,

the first one said that Iran's military forces

will continue to strike at regional countries that aid the American military. So he didn't stand down from that. And today, he issued a statement very short statement saying that he was going to keep

all the appointments his father made politically and militarily. So again, saying, you know, I want my father's policies and strategy of this war to remain. I want all his generals to remain and carry on his directives.

I mean, some of his supporters that I've talked to, some of the people who know him well, are trying to portray him as Mohammed bin Salman figure of Saudi Arabia, right? They're like, no, no, he may look like a hardliner

and his father's son, but actually he's progressive. And if anyone can really bring down hostilities with the United States or forgive the United States, it would be him because anyone else doing this would meet the wrath of the--

- Black the credibility. - Black the credibility or what face resistance, but if anyone can actually enter a ceasefire and convince the hardliners, it would be him. So there is a camp that's trying to promote him

“as an MBS figure, but we have no evidence of that, right?”

Other than what people are saying, all the evidence points, otherwise-- - In the opposite. - In the opposite, right? - Well, in that case for us,

is there a case he made that the United States and Israel have given Iran exactly the leader of the regime that they said that the outset of this war, that they were seeking to eliminate overthrow

Many people in Iran point to that.

“They say that the United States and Israel”

said that they were going to come and liberate us from the rule of this regime, but so far, in third week of war, not only were seeing vast destruction and ruin of our country from residential homes

to police precincts to critical infrastructure,

airports, factories, cultural gems and heritage. Now we have the Ayatollah Sun as our leader, so it's very disappointing to most Iranians if this is indeed the final outcome of the war. - You had talked about the 80% of Iranians

who wanted their 2BA change. That was the math you described in our last episode, and it sounds like you're saying that the elevation in Moshtaba, Haman A, as the new supreme leader, must be a real shock to the system for those

“who let themselves believe at the outset of this war”

that maybe there would be the kind of change that would open Iran up to something else. - I think Michael, that moment of hope that we discussed the last time we spoke was real,

but brief, in the third week of the war

as Iran has been stated, Moshtaba Haman A as its supreme leader and there's no signs that it's going to change its policies or make any major concessions. Iranians are under relentless bombing and airstrikes campaign by Israel and the United States,

and they're afraid, they're afraid of the war, they're afraid of this war spreading, and pretty much every night I get text messages from people who live in Iran saying tonight, the sounds of the explosion were much louder than before.

They were closer than before. So it feels like fear and anxiety has replaced hope.

- Well for now's, thank you very much, we appreciate it.

- Thank you very much for having me, Michael. - We'll be right back.

“- Here's what else you need to know today.”

- And I've been a big critic of all of the protecting of countries because I know that we'll protect them, and if ever needed, if we ever needed help, they won't be there for us, I'm just. On Monday, President Trump disparaged US allies

who have so far rejected his call to use their military to escort cargo ships in and out of the street of Hormuz, which Iran has largely shut down during the war. In pointed remarks, Trump claimed that the refusal amounted to ingratitude

from countries like Germany and Japan, after the US military protected them for decades. You mean, for 40 years, we're protecting you, and you don't want to get involved, and something that is very minor.

Very few shots are going to be taken because they don't have many shots left, but they said, "Would rather not get involved." - Trump's inability to end the standoff in the street has wailed the global economy,

reizing oil prices sharply, and becoming a major frustration for the president. And in a sweeping decision, a federal judge has blocked many of the major decisions made by the Trump administration about vaccines

over the past year. Those decisions include cutting down the number of diseases covered by routine immunizations, including hepatitis B for newborns, and restricting access to COVID vaccines.

The judge said that those decisions bypass normal procedures and abandon traditional scientific expertise. The White House said it would appeal the judge's ruling. Today's episode was produced by Austa-Chalther Vady, Mugezady, and Stella Tam.

It was edited by Mark George, contains music by Mariel Lasano, Chelsea Daniel will read, "Row in the Misto, and Dan Powell." Our theme music is by Wanderley. This episode was engineered by Chris Wood.

That's it for the day.