The power struggle that spilled out into the streets after the election may affect how important clerics view the younger Khamenei, and his chances of succeeding his father.
So far, the ayatollahs in Qom have been relatively quiet over the contested election and the demonstrations. But that could change if Ahmadinejad and the supreme leader press on with harsh police tactics.
"Neither Ayatollah Ali Khamenei nor Ahmadinejad are popular in Qom," Ali Ansari, the head of Iranian studies at St. Andrews University in Scotland, wrote in the newspaper the Observer. He added that Ahmadinejad is "regarded with contempt by most senior clerics, while Khamenei has never been accepted as a scholar of note. The clerics may bide their time, but their intervention, which may come sooner rather than later, especially if violence spreads, could be decisive."
Such a scenario would reduce Mojtaba Khamenei's prospects of rising to supreme leader.
"Mojtaba's hands are well into the [Revolutionary Guard] hierarchy," said Said Idriss, an Iranian expert with Cairo's Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies. "Like all conservatives, he is keen not to let any reformers reach power because then many questions will be raised regarding the financial management of the country and the billions of dollars conservatives use to support their regional political agenda.
"But I don't agree that [the younger Khamenei] is the figure behind his father's strong support for Ahmadinejad because even if Ahmadinejad is restored, it will not be easy for Khamenei to one day unveil his son as the new supreme leader."
Mojtaba Khamenei is not the only son of a supreme leader to have had political ambitions.
Ahmad Khomeini, Khomeini's son and chief of staff in the 1980s, was often regarded as a favored choice to become president. But after Khomeini's death in 1989, his son lost a power struggle with Rafsanjani, then speaker of parliament. Rafsanjani was elected president, and Ahmad Khomeini was named to the Supreme National Security Council and became caretaker of his father's mausoleum.
The younger Khomeini died of a heart attack in 1995.
--
jeffrey.fleishman@latimes.com
