Iranian state media have been making a conscious effort to reassure the public that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is recovering well after prostate surgery. However, the surgery has raised questions about Khamenei's health and how his potential incapacitation would affect the clerical regime or alter the nature of the Islamic republic. It would certainly create an opening for both the pragmatic conservative government and its hardline opponents, aggravating the ongoing power struggle in Tehran.
Iranian state media reported Sept. 8 that the 75-year-old Khamenei underwent successful prostate surgery and would be discharged from the hospital in less than a week. Though the state's transparency about the surgery appears somewhat unusual, it is an understandable effort by the regime to pre-empt rumors about the status of Khamenei's health. For years rumors have circulated that the supreme leader has terminal cancer. And now, as the Islamic republic goes through historic changes in domestic and foreign policy arenas, the stakeholders in the Iranian political establishment have an interest in projecting stability and continuity.
That said, the Iranian political establishment is well aware that Khamenei — along with the clerical core of the regime that has been at the helm since Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini died in 1989 — is elderly and unlikely to remain in power for long. The second most influential cleric and head of the Expediency Council, Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, is five years older than the supreme leader, though in better health. Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, the head of the legislative and electoral watchdog the Guardian Council, is 87. In 2007, Iran's most powerful clerical institution, the Assembly of Experts, lost its chairman — 85-year-old Ayatollah Ali Meshkini, who led the assembly for nearly 25 years — and his successor, 83-year-old Ayatollah Mohammad Reza Mahdavi-Kani, has been in a coma since June 4.
Over the years, as the clerical leadership has aged, a civilian political class has risen, as has the power of the security sector centered on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. In fact, much of Khamenei's 25 years as supreme leader has been spent balancing the various ideological factions and centers of power. Should he become incapacitated or die, the equilibrium among these stakeholders will suffer.
Ultimately, the outcome of the ongoing struggle between the Rouhani government and the corps (backed by the hardline clerics and politicians) will greatly determine the post-Khamenei era in terms of which side has more influence over the supreme leader. Even if Khamenei makes a smooth recovery from this operation, the impending power struggle in his inevitable absence is on the minds of many key players in the Islamic republic.
