Overview
- Iran’s Expediency Discernment Council activated constitutional provisions to appoint a three-member temporary leadership body comprising Ali Reza Arafi, President Masoud Pezeshkian, and Judiciary Chief Gholam-Hossein Mohseni Eje'i after media reports that Ali Khamenei was killed in joint U.S.–Israel strikes.
- In his first remarks from the interim post, Arafi stressed a policy of resistance toward the United States and Israel, framing it as a design attributed to Khamenei and signaling continuity.
- Arafi, about 66, is a conservative cleric who serves as a Guardian Council jurist, deputy chair of the Assembly of Experts, and head of the Center for Management of Hawzas, and he previously led Jame'at al-Mustafa, which was sanctioned by the United States and Canada in 2020.
- U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the United States did not start the war and under President Donald Trump intends to finish it, while Trump voiced openness to renewed talks if U.S. military objectives are secured.
- Diplomatic signals remain mixed as Oman cited Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi’s readiness to reengage, Ali Larijani declared Tehran would not negotiate with Washington, and experts cast the conflict as a war of wills with Israel pursuing aims up to regime change or structural collapse in Iran.