Full control. The force that actually took power in Iran after the election of Mojtaba Khamenei

Iran's Revolutionary Guards pushed for the election of Mojtaba Khamenei as their new supreme leader, seeing him as a more malleable version of his father who will uphold their hardline policies, ignoring concerns about a pragmatic appointment, senior Iranian sources told Reuters news agency on Tuesday.

Already very powerful, the Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has gained even more influence since the beginning of the war and quickly overcame the doubts of some high-ranking political and clerical figures, whose opposition to this election delayed the announcement of the name of the new supreme leader by several hours, the sources said.

In a move that added to the fears of those who opposed the installation of Mojtaba Khamenei as supreme leader, the IRGC had yet to issue a statement as of late Tuesday, nearly 48 hours after his election, amid a war that has so far killed more than a thousand Iranians.

Khamenei's election, orchestrated by the Revolutionary Guard, could lead to a more aggressive stance by Tehran abroad and a tougher domestic crackdown, the three senior Iranian sources, a former reformist official and another insider said.

Two of them said they feared the Guard's dominance of the system would further turn the Islamic Republic into a military state with only a thin semblance of religious legitimacy, undermining its already shrinking support base and leaving less room to address complex threats.

The new leader was reportedly injured in a bombing

Although he was an influential behind-the-scenes player for decades running his father's office, Mojtaba Khamenei remains an obscure figure to many Iranians, and there are reports that he was injured in the US-Israeli strikes that killed his father.

A state television anchor appeared to confirm widespread rumors that Mojtaba Khamenei had been wounded, describing him as a “janbaz” – or “wounded veteran” – of the Ramadan War, as Iran calls the current conflict. Reuters says it could not confirm his current condition.

That — and security fears after his father's assassination on February 28 — may explain Mojtaba's silence since the 88-member Assembly of Experts formally announced on Sunday night that it had elected him supreme leader.

Authority in Iran is visibly held by the Revolutionary Guards and the office of the supreme leader, known as the beyt, which operates a parallel system of influence throughout the bureaucracy.

Any doubt about who was really in charge was dispelled on Saturday when President Masoud Pezeshkian, a member of a triumvirate mandated to rule during the transition period between leaders, was forced to withdraw from the triad after apologizing to Gulf states for attacks launched by Tehran. Sources cited by Reuters said senior Guardsmen were furious at Pezeshkian's apology.

One of three senior sources who said the Revolutionary Guards now rule Iran said the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had been able to keep the IRGC under control by balancing the views of the Guards with those of political and clerical elites within the system.

But even assuming the new leader is healthy enough to take over, the Revolutionary Guard may now have the final say on major decisions going forward, the source added.

Alex Vatanka, senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC, said: “Mojtaba owes his position to the Revolutionary Guard and as such will not be as 'supreme' as his father.”

Direct messages of the Revolutionary Guards

The election of the leader constitutionally belongs to the Assembly of Experts, but in both elections of a new leader since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the forum has been influenced by the advice of other powerful people.

When Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini died in 1989, it was influential politician Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani who decided the fate of the new supreme leader, who told members of the Assembly of Experts that Khomeini whispered Khamenei's name on his deathbed.

This time, those deciding the fate of Iran's new leader were members of the Revolutionary Guards, and their messages were much more direct, all five sources said. The Guards used the argument that the war required a speedy trial and the election of a candidate who would defy the United States.

Because their hall in the city of Qom was bombed, the Assembly of Experts had to meet in another, so far unknown place, and some of the members could not be present or even informed about the vote, a member of the forum, Ayatollah Mohsen Heydari, told state television.

The constitutional body reached a two-thirds quorum, Heydari said, without specifying how many actually attended, with 85-90 percent of those present supporting Mojtaba Khamenei.

It was unclear how many of those absent supported or opposed it, but the numbers showed the decision was not as unanimous as the Guards might have hoped.

Concerns about a harder line

A group of ayatollahs disagreed with the hereditary succession and feared that Mojtaba's election could alienate even many supporters of the ruling system, two of the sources said.

Behind the scenes, some clerics and members of the political establishment have tried to promote an alternative in numerous discussions over the past week, one of the sources said.

However, the former reformist official was quoted as saying that the Revolutionary Guards had threatened critics of Mojtaba Khamenei's accession. The source inside the Islamic Republic said the IRGC reached out to members of the assembly, a move that was met with objections, but in the end they felt compelled to support Mojtaba.

Khamenei's appointment was originally supposed to be announced early Sunday, but was only made late in the evening as a result of persistent opposition to his election, all five sources confirmed.

As head of the beyt for many years under his father, Mojtaba Khamenei built very close relations with the Revolutionary Guards, particularly the second-ranking commanders who replaced top generals killed in the war, one of the officials said.

The result, the former reformist official said, will be a foreign and domestic policy headed in a more radical direction, with the Revolutionary Guard finally getting what it has sought for years: full control.