Inside Tehran's power struggle - and why the Ayatollah’s successor could be the West's worst nightmare: They still have months' worth of missiles and thousands of drones... and worst-case scenario is looking ever likelier, by HOSSEIN RASSAM

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Iran’s supreme leader, several of its military leadership and most powerful regime figures are dead. Tehran’s war machine is steadily being obliterated by US air strikes, while Israeli spies infiltrate every corner of the country. For the diehard fanatics of the Revolutionary Guard, it must feel like there’s nowhere left to hide.

And yet Iranian drones and missiles are still raining down across the Middle East, causing chaos and disruption on a massive scale. So how on earth are they doing it?

Iran is a vast country, nearly seven times the size of Britain, with a population tens of millions greater. For all the hundreds of Western fighter jets dropping their deadly payloads, the country still boasts a sprawling network of underground missile silos. Several of these have been destroyed but many undoubtedly remain after Iran spent decades stockpiling materiel to launch deadly attacks on its neighbours and the wider world for precisely a time like this.

Iran also retains a huge missile stockpile. These should last weeks if not months at the current rate. And it has hundreds of cheap, small ‘suicide’ drones that can be launched from trucks four at a time, as well as from ships. Though much of the Iranian navy is destroyed, many civilian vessels can be – and are – disguised for this purpose.

However, the greatest challenge for the regime is that they are swiftly running out of launchers to blast their missiles into the skies after so many were destroyed by American precision bombing. At least some of the units that are still operating, then, are likely doing so independently of what remains of central command.

This decentralisation is in fact a crucial part of the late Ayatollah’s war strategy, which anticipated that some units would cease communicating with Tehran in a war against the West, given the risk that US signals intelligence would geo-locate their position.

So who is actually in charge of the country?

Mohammad Qalibaf, the IRGC brigadier general, is thought to be the man implementing Iran's military strategy, most likely from a Tehran bunker

The county's president, Masoud Pezeshkian,leads the regime's three-man ‘Interim Leadership Council'... he said after the Ayatollah’s assassination that ‘bloodshed and revenge’ is Iran’s ‘legitimate right and duty'

The late leader's son Mojtaba Khamenei has long been described as a powerful figure behind the scenes

The man implementing the military strategy is IRGC brigadier general, and Parliament Speaker, Mohammad Qalibaf, most likely from a Tehran bunker. He surfaced on X yesterday to say Iran will not let go of aggressors until they are punished. Victory for the regime is a truce, won by sustaining strikes while throwing punches here and there, exhausting the enemy while maintaining panic and tension in the region.

Qalibaf answers to the newly established three-man ‘Interim Leadership Council’, which in Khamenei’s absence is now running Iran. It comprises the country’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, who said after the Ayatollah’s assassination that ‘bloodshed and revenge’ is Iran’s ‘legitimate right and duty’, head of the judiciary Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei and the hardline cleric with leadership ambitions Alireza Arafi.

Meanwhile, members of the 88-strong Assembly of Experts, the clerical body tasked with selecting the late Ayatollah’s successor in the belief that he is divinely appointed, should, in theory, now be gathering, much like a papal conclave, to choose him.

They will have to conduct their solemn business from behind secure (they hope) phone lines and encrypted mobile apps, if such things still exist in Iran. They will certainly not risk gathering in person under the gimlet glare of US and Israeli precision weaponry.

The position they are filling is critical. The Supreme Leader not only wields ultimate religious authority, he also commands the armed forces, controls the internal security apparatus and sits at the centre of a vast web of institutions.

But I fear the White House badly misunderstands the Islamic Republic. The regime is not a simple vertical dictatorship dependent on one individual, in the manner that Libya was under Colonel Gaddafi, or indeed Iraq was under Saddam Hussein. It is better understood as a constellation of overlapping power centres covering military, clerical, bureaucratic, security, intelligence and financial interests, with the Ayatollah at the centre. The system is so intertwined that removing the spider doesn’t destroy the web.

Still, succession matters enormously for propaganda and strategic purposes – and several names are circulating. 

Tehran’s military infrastructure is steadily being obliterated by US air strikes... and yet Iranian drones and missiles are still raining down across the Middle East

The three-man ‘Interim Leadership Council’ which is now running Iran... president Masoud Pezeshkian, the head of the judiciary Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei and the hardline cleric Alireza Arafi

One is Mojtaba Khamenei, the late leader’s son, long described as a powerful figure behind the scenes. Fiercely anti-Western, he could be trusted to continue his martyred father’s path.

Another contender is Hassan Khomeini, grandson of the Republic’s founder, Ruhollah Khomeini. Traditionalists value his descent from the Prophet’s own family line.

More intriguing still is the re-emergence of former president Hassan Rouhani, 77. A pragmatist, his elevation would be the least alarming outcome for the West – not an overnight détente but likely to represent the reopening of diplomatic channels.

Looming over all of this is the hawkish Arafi, sitting on the Interim Leadership Council, who of all the candidates is the most closely aligned with Khamenei’s worldview: he despises the West, and would undoubtedly be a preferred choice for an Assembly dominated by hardliners.

Should Arafi prevail, the implications would be stark – repression at home would intensify, Iran’s nuclear ambitions would continue, and it would rely more on regional proxies to pressure America’s allies.

But can any leader be appointed under such bombardment – and how long could he survive?

The worst-case scenario for the watching West is not endless war, but something murkier: a heavily sanctioned, economically crippled Iran whose central authority has weakened enough for militant proxies such as Hezbollah, the Houthis of Yemen and what remains of Hamas in Gaza to act with increasing autonomy, causing havoc across the region. That could only destabilise the situation further – at an already perilous moment.

Hossein Rassam is a London-based political analyst specialising in Iran