Mojtaba Khamenei, the new supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, still hasn’t been seen in public since he was named to his exalted new position. Reuters reported that “three people close to his inner circle” said that the world’s most prominent nepo baby was severely injured in the airstrike that killed his father, suffering disfigurement to his face and reportedly also losing a leg. Nevertheless, in a new message on Telegram Saturday, the younger Khamenei was full of threats and bravado, and ready to give the Great Satan and Little Satan a whipping they won’t soon forget.
“Iran’s navy,” Mojtaba, or whoever was writing the message in his name, declared, “is ready to inflict new bitter defeats on enemies.” That may be, but it’s more than a little improbable. As President Donald Trump put it on Monday, “Their military is destroyed, their whole navy is underwater. One hundred fifty ships are gone, their navy is gone.”
It was peculiarly fitting: the threat of a phantom navy from a supreme leader who may very well not be alive at all. The Islamic Republic has admitted that Mojtaba was indeed gravely injured: according to Reuters, “a newsreader on state television described him as a ‘janbaz,’ a term used for those badly wounded in war, after he was named supreme leader.”
On the other hand, Mojtaba Khamenei could be dead, and all this talk about his facial injuries and how he lost a leg is just an attempt to secure some legitimacy for a regime that is on the brink. A new supreme leader who is the son of the old supreme leader immediately commands more respect than a second- or third-line cleric who might have been pressed into duty after the killing of so many of the Islamic Republic’s top leadership.
Whatever his true condition may be, the Telegram version of Mojtaba was full of bravado. “Just as Iran’s drones strike like lightning against the US and Zionist criminals, Israel,” he wrote, “the brave navy is also prepared to inflict new bitter defeat on enemies.”
Nor is the Islamic Republic relying upon its navy alone. “The Army,” Khamenei added, “is like the nation’s child, which arises from within the heart of the people’s homes. The Islamic Republic of Iran’s Army is now courageously defending the land, water, and flag that belong to it. Iran’s Army is standing side by side with their comrades from other armed forces, battling the two leading armies of disbelief and Arrogance.”
Taking a page from Baghdad Bob, the spokesman for Saddam Hussein who provoked laughter around the world two decades ago when he insisted that the Iraqi army was dealing the Americans a humiliating defeat, even as American troops advanced in the background of his video shot, Mojtaba declared: “And the Islamic Army has exposed those armies’ weakness and humiliation to the world.”
He meant, of course, the armies of America and Israel, not his own, but back in the real world, Trump said: “I think Iran is in very bad shape. I think they’re pretty desperate… We had a meeting that lasted 21 hours. We understand the situation better than anybody, and Iran’s in very bad shape.”
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Nevertheless, it seems clear from the chest-thumping and threats in the message from Khamenei, or whoever really wrote it, that the Islamic Republic of Iran intends to take up the war in earnest when the true expires on April 22. That has been clear enough from the fact that on Saturday, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) announced: “Following the violation of the ceasefire conditions, the American enemy did not lift the naval blockade of Iranian vessels and ports; therefore, from this afternoon, the Strait of Hormuz is closed until this blockade is lifted.”
Whatever shape Mojtaba Khamenei is really in, the IRGC is likely running the show in Iran now, and that situation will almost certainly continue. Iran’s Islamic regime has been ruling through terror for 47 years, with the IRGC as its principal enforcement arm. Now, with the regime deeply threatened from both within and without, the terror has gotten even worse, and those who have trafficked in it all these years have presented themselves as the only force that can keep the regime in power. Nevertheless, Mojtaba Khamenei, alive or just presented as such, is a powerful force to give the new rulers legitimacy. How long all this strange situation will or can last, however, will depend largely upon the will of the U.S. and Israel to keep up the pressure.
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