Morning Wire - Iran Without Khamenei: What Comes Next?

Episode Date: March 8, 2026

After 36 years in power, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is dead following Operation Epic Fury. In this episode, we break down the late Supreme Leader's brutal legacy, the power vacuum left in his wake, and who could take his place. Get the facts first with Morning Wire.- - -Ep. 2670- - -Wake up with new Morning Wire merch: https://bit.ly/4lIubt3- - -Today's Sponsors:Alliance Defending Freedom - Visit https://JoinADF.com/WIRE or text “WIRE” to 83848 to learn more.Lean - Get 20% off when you enter code WIRE at https://TakeLean.com- - -Privacy Policy: https://www.dailywire.com/privacymorning wire,morning wire podcast,the morning wire podcast,Georgia Howe,John Bickley,daily wire podcast,podcast,news podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After decades in power and after his regime murdered tens of thousands of its own citizens, Iran's supreme leader Ali Khomeini was killed in the initial strikes of Operation Epic Fury. The Ayatollah's death has prompted both exuberance and concern about who or what might fill the power vacuum. In this episode, we speak with the senior director of the Iran program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies about Khomeini's dark legacy and how his death has already begun to change Iran. I'm Daily Wire, executive editor John Bickley with Georgia Howl. This is a weekend edition of One Wire. I'd like to introduce you to 17-year-old Adelaia Cross.

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Visit takelein.com and enter Wire for your discount. That's promo code wire at takelein.com today. Joining us now is Ben Bin Taliblu, the senior director of the Iran program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracy. Benin, good to see you again. Thanks for coming on. Pleasure. Always good to be back with you guys.

Thank you. So Ayatollah Khomeini ruled for 36 years in Iran. He was a power player actually since the Islamic Revolution in 79, so he's been there from the beginning. the reaction on the ground there to his death? Well, largely the reaction is felicitation and jubilation. You know, Iran just went through its biggest nationwide anti-regime uprising in the month of January with 30 to 40,000 killed just in a matter of days. That was coterminous with one of the nation's largest internet blackouts. And among one of the many chance that we've heard was death

to Hamini. And the Iranian population is quite literally, um, no longer filtering itself when it comes to its views, values, and intentions here. They rightly hold the Supreme Leader, supremely accountable for the state that their country has been in. Now, for people who aren't familiar with Kamene, how did he come into power 36 years ago? Well, it was quite a bit of musical chairs at the top. Hamanay occupied the position of Supreme Leader or more aptly put guardianship of the jurisprudent. And that religious title is a manufacturer. actor title that, you know, Iranian officials said only senior clergy, only Ayatollahs, basically

the equivalent of a religious PhD could have. But religiously, Hamene has a religious version of an M.A. He's a Hojahatollah, Islam. So he was kind of promoted overnight and pushed forward in the elite infighting after the death of the founding father of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Khomeini. I know that the Kays can get confusing. I'm a first generation Iranian American, myself, speak fluent Persian, but at the same time, Khomeini and Khomeini can be something times confusing. I've made the slip up before, but trust me, we know who they are. Here, after the death of Khomeini, Hamene was pushed forward by some of Iran's political elite, thinking that he would be a pliant cleric. But in his three and a half decades in power, Hamine has really, had really

consolidated the security services and brought in the military to politics, to society, and to the economy, and relied on them for his three and a half decades of terror. Yeah, I wanted to ask you specifically about that, his very strict, rigid regime and his method of rule. There was a fundamentalist Islamic aspect to it, of course. What are some of the defining characteristics of his reign? To be brutally honest, if Haminae had died on October 6, 2023, I think you really could have made the case that this individual would have been among one of the most successful anti-American and anti-Israeli autocrats of the modern Muslim world.

ultimately, Hamé's legacy was about preserving, protecting, and defending the Islamic Republic and the Islamic Revolution. Abroad, he kept that government's disposition focused on exporting the revolution, on exporting terrorism, of seeking to pursue destabilizing weapons, including missiles and weapons of mass destruction, and continuing a foreign policy of death to America and death to Israel, even at the peak of American military superiority and unipolarity, even when it came near its borders. It was a reign of fear, a reign of terror. He basically institutionalized the Islamic Republic after it was founded. He had strict dress codes that were always there from the get-go, but also continued to be enforced. And Hamine's style basically deflected blame from him for the mass repression and the institutionalization of Islamism. But ultimately, the Iranian population rightly held him accountable. So Hamine's reign at home was a reign that did not budge, did not offer representative government, and really continue to push for the institutionalization

of their own perverse brand of 12 Erg Sheism. One follow up to that, particularly the treatment of women under his regime. There's been a lot of reports about the specific laws, marriage laws as it applies to women, women in the workforce, etc. What was it like for women under his reign? Well, unfortunately, in the 47 years of the Islamic Republic, the biggest social losers have been women, which is why one of the first and earliest protest against the Islamic Republic, which was about the hijab issue, was led by women just months after this regime was established in 1979. So it's not a shocker that as things go on and the Islamic Republic continues to really tout this brand of Islamism that not just women, but really

all strands of society begin to push back. But there's no doubt that one of the most biggest losers of 47 years of an Islamic Republic across two similarly hardline and fundamentalist Supreme Leaders who have been instituting that version of Islamism have been women. So there are certain academic fields that women are prohibited from. There's

certainly an underrepresentation in the job market even though they can be overrepresented when it comes to advanced degrees. There's institutional discrimination at the judiciary and through the legal process of the Islamic Republic. And unfortunately, by institutionalizing Islamic law, it has done horrible things when it comes to, you know, the age of marriage,

for example, or a woman's right to divorce. Now, what do we know about Kamani as a person? I know there have been some almost flattering puff pieces and obituaries in some of the Western media, but what do we know about what he was actually like? Well, fortunately, I never met him, but based on having spent many years in my life having to read every speech, every comment, every essay that this individual has written, you can tell that this individual has a fairly consistent worldview and a worldview that actually hardens or crystallizes the more they reach power. You know, the old saying about power, which is that with power comes corruption, with absolute power comes absolute corruption, you really did begin to see that in the first

few years of the tenure of Chaminé's supreme leadership. As a person, they say, however, Hamine was a bit more timid. You could even say when it comes to crises, for example, every time there's a major protest, he retreats. This is something that some of his close, his advisors and former family members who have been outspoken since the 2009 Green Revolution have said and have put at the service of Persian diaspora media. But Hamine is many things to many people. He is a hardline anti-American theocrat. He is a failed poets. He is someone who carries the burdens and prejudices of coming from a very, very poor family that was discriminated against both for wealth as well as for going in to the institution

of the clergy to begin with. And he always really envisioned, I mean the failed poet thing in a sincere way, because he always envisioned himself as some kind of master literary figure. But in reality, the hard, brutal truth was that he was not. He was in essence really just a mid-level theocrat put in charge of a major national security state. And when you have all these pretensions and presumptions about power, but you don't have the capability to follow that through, and the country will end up looking like, like Iran does look like today, which is a country of amazing potential, but that really has been driven into the ground. So despite what some people have reported in obituaries about his personal inclinations, that he likes to read Victor Hugo, it's his

track record that matters. You know, people are actually very complex. Terrorists, can have families to, I'm not interested in how Chalmanet treated his cousins or his brothers. I'm interested in what he did with the place where my ancestral family comes from. Right. Now, who exactly will fill the power vacuum in the long term remains to be seen, of course. But even just with the fact that Khomeini is now out of the picture, how might that change things in the country now? Well, even what we're looking at today, the Islamic Republic does not have a Supreme Leader, it does not have a commander-in-chief, but it's still continuing a multi-front missile and drone war against America, against Israel, and against many of its Arab neighbors.

Even just earlier, it attacked Turkey, even, which is a NATO-Allied country. So make no mistake, despite not being at the helm, the legacy of Ali Khomeini is felt very much across Iran's political institutions and military institutions. You could say there is a vacuum, but the Islamic Republic is acting like it would be expected to act. I mean, this is a regime that within hours after losing the commanding heights of the IRGC in the 12-day war last June also did something similar and instituted massive missile barrages against Israel. So there is room at this point in time to have a more open debate as to how much of Iran's foreign and security policy was an 86-year-old theocrat who had not

left the country since 1989 really being involved in on a day-to-day basis, especially as he was sheltered and especially as electronic communications with him were cut. And we have heard that not just the next level of leadership, but maybe a few levels down have been completely wiped out. That's what Trump is saying. Of course, there's a lot that's hard to confirm at this point. But who do we know right now in terms of who is calling the shots in Iran? Well, I would say the most important person, the most important government entity and the most important institution in the country are as follows. It's Ali Larijani. who is the Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, he's by far, in my view, at the

moment, the most important national security decision maker who is still alive, who is still that link between command and control and political institutions and military institutions, and also setting the general tone, tenor, and tempo of where the state will go. The institution that he leads, the Supreme National Security Council, is the most important national security decision-making body in the country. And then third, the most important institution writ large is the military, in particular, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. So for those who want to know where Iran will go or where Iran is headed, as we have rumors that Khomein is supposed to succeed him as supreme leader, as we have reports that there

is this interim leadership council of the president of another cleric named Rafi and the head of the judiciary named Eiji, as those three are, quote, unquote, leading the country in a temporary leadership council, in reality, the power structure that matters is the Supreme National Security Council, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and Ali Laarijani. Now, even if those individuals were wiped out, presumably there are Iranians who are still loyal to the old regime. Do we know what percentage of the population falls in that category? Well, unfortunately, given their cohesion, large swaths of the security services are loyal, as well as hard-line political, military, and religious elite, as well as you could assume,

some but not all of their family members and network of friends and veterans. Beyond that, in a country of about 91-5-92 million, a back of the envelope assessment, all anecdotal, not really empirical, is at max 2015%, which can still be a sizable number in a country that is that big. And the minority strategy of rule is the strategy that Ali Khamenei had inherited and perfected. Well, as we've seen that approach can last for decades. Let's hope those days are done.

Benham, thank you so much for coming on. We really appreciate your expertise. Always a pleasure. Thank you.