Iran International
As Iran adjusts to life after Ali Khamenei, a question once considered unthinkable is moving into the open: is the role of Supreme Leader itself being redefined?
For nearly half a century, the Islamic Republic has rested on one central principle: the Supreme Leader has the final word.
Presidents, parliament, the judiciary and the military could disagree. Institutions could compete. Factions could fight. But ultimately, Iran’s Supreme Leader settled the argument.
That assumption now appears shaken—and is being openly questioned from inside the system itself.
The debate began with what appeared to be a dispute over the government’s memorandum with the United States.
Vice President for Executive Affairs Mohammad-Jafar Ghaempanah argued that Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei’s views were subject to institutional review rather than automatic implementation.
“If every opinion expressed by the Leader were implemented without question, there would be no need for institutions such as Parliament or the Supreme National Security Council,” Ghaempanah said.
Ultra-hardliners accused Ghaempanah of attacking the doctrine of Velayat-e Faqih, or Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist, arguing that he had reduced the Supreme Leader’s judgment to the level of other officials.
“It’s a very new thought,” said Patrick Clawson, deputy director for research at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, “the idea that the Supreme Leader is not the one who makes the final decision.”
Clawson cautioned against overstating Ghaempanah’s personal influence. Although he holds the title of vice president, the position functions largely as a presidential adviser rather than one of Iran’s principal decision-makers.
The significance, he said, lies not with the messenger but with the idea itself.
“There has always been some collective element,” Clawson said. “But the Supreme Leader has been the final decision-maker.”
The suggestion that institutional decisions might themselves become definitive, without requiring the Leader’s final approval, would represent “a very new and different way of doing things,” he added.
Historian Arash Azizi said the controversy reflects a deeper problem.
“The Islamic Republic's constitutional design has had a tension or a contradiction built into it from the beginning,” Azizi said, arguing that the office of Supreme Leader was built around a “philosopher-king” model: an unelected cleric standing above politics and resolving disputes between competing institutions.
Under Ali Khamenei, that contradiction largely disappeared.
“He effectively turned Iran into an autocracy ... a personalistic system really, where his final word just carried the ultimate weight,” Azizi said.
But no successor, he argues, was likely to inherit that degree of authority.
“It had long been clear that there would be no smooth succession,” Azizi said. “It had also long been clear that it is much more likely that the future of leadership in the Islamic Republic would be less clerical and more collective.”
According to Azizi, that transition had already begun before Ali Khamenei’s death.
Following the 12-day war, he argued, day-to-day authority increasingly shifted toward the Supreme National Security Council, where Iran’s major institutions, including the presidency, judiciary, IRGC and intelligence services, are represented.
In that context, Ghaempanah’s remarks become more than a defense of negotiations with Washington.
They suggest the office of Supreme Leader itself may be evolving from the unquestioned source of authority into one power center among several.
If that trend continues, Azizi believes the constitutional framework itself may eventually need to change.
“I believe that in the next few years, they'll change the constitution and perhaps get rid of the position of Supreme Leader, merge it with the president, or fundamentally change the constitution of the Islamic Republic.”
Janatan Sayeh, a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, sees another force behind the shift.
“No one had undermined the Supreme Leader's role like this,” he said.
“The military establishment does not feel the need to appease the clergy as much as they used to,” Sayeh added.
Rather than replacing the office of Supreme Leader, Sayeh argues, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps benefits from preserving it as a source of religious and constitutional legitimacy while real power increasingly flows through security institutions.
“Ideally they want a Velayat-e Faqih that's IRGC-dominated and not influenced by the clergy,” he said.
The government insists Ghaempanah’s comments have been distorted and that he never challenged the Supreme Leader’s authority.
Yet the debate his remarks unleashed reveals something almost unimaginable under Ali Khamenei.
For decades, Iran’s institutions competed beneath a single unquestioned authority. Today, the competition increasingly appears to be over that authority itself.
Whether power ultimately settles with the Supreme National Security Council, the IRGC or another coalition of political elites remains uncertain.
The deeper question is whether the office of Supreme Leader, as it functioned under Ali Khamenei, can survive the man who defined it.
