Iran names slain supreme leader’s son as successor, in a defiant message to Trump | CNN

When millions of Iranians poured into the streets in 1979 to end the rule of the former shah, their revolution seemed to have put an end to the practice of passing power from father to son. Not so. Mojtaba Khamenei, the second son of former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, has been elevated to the position his father held for nearly four decades until his death in US-Israeli air strikes. The 88-member Assembly of Experts did what many Iranians had hoped it would never do: turn the Islamic Republic into a dynasty. The appointment of the very figure US President Donald Trump had branded “unacceptable” appeared to be a deliberate act of defiance – a signal that Iran’s leadership has no intention of folding to American pressure. Instead, the regime appears to be doubling down on the slain supreme leader’s hardline course, betting it can weather future attacks by consolidating power around the Revolutionary Guards with the younger Khamenei at the helm. Before the news had fully spread in a country under near-total internet and communications blackout, the image-making had already begun. Within hours of Mojtaba’s appointment as Iran’s third Supreme Leader, state media released