Iran’s new supreme leader issues worrying threat in first statement – The Hook news

The domestic backdrop to his rise is equally important. Reuters reported this week that the Islamic Republic’s loyalist base remains organised and capable of mobilising in support of the new leader, but that its social base is far narrower than in the early decades after the 1979 revolution. Interviews cited by Reuters with Basij members, officials, analysts and ordinary Iranians suggested that while hardliners can still fill the streets with supporters and suppress unrest, years of corruption, repression and economic decline have eroded wider backing for the system. Mojtaba Khamenei’s selection therefore appears to have been aimed at consolidating the regime’s core rather than broadening its legitimacy. In practice, that means his authority may depend less on popular appeal than on maintaining cohesion among clerics, the Guards and the security networks that survived the first wave of strikes.