Mojtaba Khamenei’s rumoured injury or death won’t change Iran’s trajectory

When Mojtaba Khamenei’s elevation as Iran’s new supreme leader was announced, many observers treated it chiefly as a confirmation of a new hardliner order in Tehran. Subsequent rumours about his injury or even death, sparked by his disappearance from public view, have fuelled speculations of what that may mean for the Iranian regime.

What many analyses fail to register is that the power consolid...