Ayatollah Khamenei is dead. Here’s what that means for Iran’s leadership.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s death could be the most existential threat to Iran’s Islamist regime in its nearly 50 years. But it doesn’t necessarily mean a quick end to the theocracy that controls the country.

While Iran has an elected president, Masoud Pezeshkian, real power has rested with its supreme leader. The current regime has only seen one other power shift of this magnitude — following the 1989 death of the Islamic Republic’s founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

Khamenei’s death on Saturday, which Iranian state media confirmed, leaves no obvious successor. For years, former President Ebrahim Raisi had been favored to replace Khamenei upon the supreme leader’s death, but he was killed in a 2024 helicopter crash.

Since then, the slain supreme leader’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, has been spoken of as one possible successor. He’s a somewhat shadowy figure with behind-the-scenes influence who is believed to play an important role in managing his father’s wealth. But Mojtaba wouldn’t be the only name in the mix. Khamenei reportedly selected three candidates who could take his place during last June’s 12-day war. Their names have not been made public.

The uncertainty about succession could create an opportunity for the regime’s opponents. In video comments announcing the U.S. strikes in Iran on Saturday, Trump urged Iranian citizens to seize the moment to topple the regime. “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take,” he said. “This will probably be your only chance for generations.”

But the theocracy Khamenei presided over has proved resilient through numerous challenges — from a massive 2009 uprising over accusations of election fraud to recent countrywide protests seeking to topple the regime that garnered Trump’s backing in January before the Iranian government stomped them out.

“A post-Khamenei Iran is not necessarily a post-Islamic Republic of Iran,” said Behnam Ben Taleblu, the senior Iran director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “The Islamic Republic has been able to survive significant domestic and foreign pressure.”

He argued that Iran’s government has survived by operating “in the gray strategically,” noting Tehran’s ability to keep both its nuclear and ballistic missiles program going for years despite international demands. The regime has also demonstrated its willingness to crack down on its citizens and violently subdue protests time and again.

In his time as ayatollah, Khamenei presided over a growing web of regional proxies that have perpetrated violence on U.S. troops and America’s allies across the Middle East. At home, Khamenei’s regime kept a tight grip on the Iranian people, severely curbing individual freedoms, especially for women and some minority groups.

Khamenei’s repression sparked backlash from Iranian citizens over the years. As each flare of discontent grew stronger, so did the brutality of the government’s response. In December, government forces killed thousands of protesters and arrested tens of thousands more.

There are those who are readying to step in if the regime falls. Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran’s last shah, was quick to release a statement of his own shortly after strikes began. The regime is “collapsing,” Pahlavi said in comments posted to social media, lauding Trump for what he described as a “humanitarian intervention.”

“However, despite the arrival of this assistance, the final victory will still be achieved by us,” Pahlavi said. “It is we, the people of Iran, who will finish this task in this final battle. The time to return to the streets is approaching.”

Pahlavi, who lives in the U.S., has sought to position himself as the primary opposition leader to the Islamist regime, though the degree of support among Iranians for the exiled crown prince remains unclear.

Absent a clear transition of power, Iran’s elite military force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, could take the mantle of leadership.

If a Saturday Truth Social post from Trump declaring Khamenei had been killed is any indication of the president’s thinking, the administration may be hoping for a Venezuela-style leadership transition in Iran, looking for a figure akin to interim President Delcy Rodriguez to emerge from the IRGC’s ranks.

“Hopefully, the IRGC and Police will peacefully merge with the Iranian Patriots, and work together as a unit to bring back the Country to the Greatness it deserves,” Trump wrote in his post.

Complete power under hardline IRGC generals would likely mean a persistence of repression in Iran under a military structure — and of a starkly anti-American government that could still wreak havoc in the region.

During a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing in January, Secretary of State Marco Rubio acknowledged that in the event of Khamenei’s death, “no one knows who would take over” the reins of power in the country.

“That’s an open question,” Rubio told senators at the time.

Nahal Toosi contributed to this report.