Jason Rezaian: Iran’s New Supreme Leader ‘Might Not Be Alive’

EXCERPT:

REZAIAN: "I wasn‘t super surprised by his election. There‘s been a lot of talk that he might succeed his father when his father died. This speculation has been around for more than a decade. I also wonder if the fact that we haven‘t seen him indicates that he might not be alive. I mean, I don‘t think that there‘s a clear indication that anyone has spoken to him. The president of Iran, Masoud Pezeshkian, said today that neither he nor anyone else in his government had spoken with the younger Khamenei since he was appointed supreme leader on Sunday. So there is still so much confusion around this. And if you look back to just 10 days ago or so, it took quite some time for them to announce that his father had been killed as well. So it‘s really unclear what‘s going on behind the scenes. There‘s obviously lots of jockeying within the system, and I think that they felt as though they had to make some sort of announcement to project some semblance of stability."