Iran led by 3-man council with varying views after mass assassination leaves huge power vacuum

A council of three Iranian officials with mixed beliefs is governing Iran after the US-Israeli assassination of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and 40 of his top lieutenants left a gaping power vacuum in the Middle Eastern nation.

But the country’s notorious top nuclear and security official — Ali Larijani, the man allegedly behind Iran’s vicious crackdown on anti-regime protesters of recent months — could emerge as the most powerful man in the nation after the weekend’s chaos dies down, according to reports.

Larijani is not one of the three men currently running the country.

The three-person council was convened on Sunday — as directed by Iran’s constitution — and will run the country until an 88-person group known as the Assembly of Experts convenes to select a new supreme leader, according to CNN.

Members of the sitting leadership council are Iran’s moderate-leaning president Masoud Pezeshkian, the hardline conservative chief supreme court justice Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, and Ayatollah Alireza Arafi — a member of Iran’s Guardian council, which makes sure laws and officials adhere to strict Islamic values.

Below is more the nation’s current leaders, and the man who could supplant them in the coming days:

President Masoud Pezeshkian

Pezeshkian is considered to be a moderate leader after being elected president as a reformist in 2024.

He is a former heart surgeon and veteran of the 1980 Iran-Iraq War, according to Al Jazeera, and also served as Iran’s health minister and then a parliament member beginning in 2005.

Pezeshkian was elected president with a campaign based on social, political and economic reform, and framed himself as the man who would be able to convince the US into lifting crippling sanctions imposed over Iran’s nuclear weapons program, the Wall Street Journal reported.

But Pezeshkian — who was initially rumored to be one of the dozens of top officials killed in the Saturday strike on Tehran — responded with a virulent message to the west after Khamenei’s death, saying Iran has a “legitimate duty and right to avenge the perpetrators and masterminds of this historic crime.”

Justice Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei

Mohseni-Ejei was appointed to lead Iran’s supreme court by Khamenei himself in 2021 after a career of backing the dead supreme leader’s aggressive and oppressive policies.

He was intelligence minister from 2005 and 2006, then Iran’s prosecutor general, and also pushed for the harshest possible punishments for protesters who took to the streets against the Iranian regime earlier this year.

Mohseni-Ejei also accused President Trump and Israel of fomenting those protests — which left thousands of demonstrators dead on the orders of Khamenei’s government.

Ayatollah Alireza Arafi

Arafi sits on Iran’s Guardian Council, which is tasked with reviewing all parliamentary legislation to make sure it meets the demands of sharia law.

He has served since 2019 with the 12-person council, which also vets and vetoes candidates for government officials based on their adherence to oppressive and extreme Islamic principles — notably barring all women from the ballot in Iran’s 2021 presidential election.

Arafi is considered a top contender for succeeding Khamenei, CNN reported.

Ali Larijani

Larijani was appointed in August as secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, which is charged with organizing the nation’s defense policies, and has made himself Iran’s top man for dealing with its nuclear weaponry ambitions.

The longtime politician’s career has been marked by devoted loyalty to Khamenei, as well as an ability to spin negotiations with rivals to serve the now-deceased supreme leader’s agenda, according to the Times of Israel.

He even voiced a pragmatic approach when discussing nuclear negotiations with the US in January — less than a year after American forces bombed Iran’s nuclear research facilities in June — calling the issue “resolvable” in a television interview.

“If the Americans’ concern is that Iran should not move toward acquiring a nuclear weapon, that can be addressed,” he said, according to the Times of Israel.

But Larijani’s true hardline politics were exposed earlier this year after thousands of Iranians took to the streets to protest the Khamenei regime’s oppression. The US accused him of being one of the loudest voices calling for the violent crackdown that left thousands of demonstrators killed and imprisoned.

“Larijani was one of the first Iranian leaders to call for violence in response to the legitimate demands of the Iranian people,” the US Treasury said in January after sanctions were imposed on him.

And his rhetoric has been fiery since the Saturday attacks across Iran, which the White House said have left its military apparatus crippled and officials scrambling to the negotiating table.

Larijani took to Iranian state television Sunday to blame the US and Israel for trying to destroy Iran — and warned “secessionist groups” within the nation would face severe consequences if they gave in to western demands to submit.

That rhetoric — along with his position as one of Khamenei’s top surviving lieutenants — could position him well to take over the country in the weeks ahead.