Mojtaba Khamenei, If Alive and Not Incapacitated, Is More Dangerous Than His Father

Jaber Rajabi was once high up in the Iranian regime, a foreign policy advisor to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad when the latter was president. But he became disaffected and ultimately rejected fanatical Islam, becoming a defector from the Islamic Republic. He now lives in exile. He was recently interviewed by the Jerusalem Post. Rajabi knew Mojtaba Khamenei well; he was even his study mate at a seminary in Qom. He now warns the West that the supreme leader’s son is much more fanatical and dangerous than his father. Mojtaba Khamenei may be dead or comatose; if, however, he does actually serve as supreme leader, he constitutes a serious threat. More on his observations can be found here: “Mojtaba Khamenei deadlier than his father, ex-study partner of supreme leader tells ‘Post,’” by Danielle Greyman-Kennard, Jerusalem Post, March 11, 2026:

Mojtaba Khamenei is infinitely more dangerous than his predecessor and father, Ali Khamenei, as he is more willing to lie and places less value on human life, a former study partner of the new supreme leader told The Jerusalem Post.

Jaber Rajabi, who worked as a foreign-policy adviser to then-Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and as a go-between for the regime-backed militias in Iraq, spoke with the Post through a written translator from his home, where he has been living under local protection in exile since 2021.

From a family loyal to the regime, Rajabi’s father fought in the Iraq-Iran War, and his mother worked for a short time in the office of the now-assassinated supreme leader. It was this history that led the regime to recruit him after discovering that he fought in Muqtada al-Sadr’s terrorist groups against US forces in Iraq….

“Mojtaba, at that time, was very hypocritical. He says something, but inside him there is something totally different,” Rajabi recounted to the Post. Rajabi had earlier told The Atlantic that his former study partner was obsessed with the end of days and had believed “he himself will have a special part in hastening humanity down that path.”

Twelver Shia belief holds that the 12th Imam, Muhammad al‑Mahdi, who is believed to be in hiding, will return at the end of times to establish a period of global justice in which oppression is eradicated. Islamic apocalyptic traditions also describe major conflicts preceding this era; in Sunni hadith literature, one such event is the Malhama al‑Kubra, a great battle sometimes interpreted as a confrontation with Western powers.

“I remember Khamenei spoke in Hawza studies [and] said the nuclear issue and the soldiers are his heritage. Mojtaba’s ambitions will not be impacted by airstrikes,” he recalled. “There are other matters I can’t mention… They need the nuclear issue as a protection for their regime and their hegemony in the region.”

In his view, Mojtaba believes in, and welcomes, an apocalyptic event — a war between Islam and the West, which the forces of Islam will win. But even before then, Iran’s nuclear weapons will protect it from the West and assure its hegemony in the Middle East, where Iran will prevail over both Israel and the Sunni Arab states.

“I said many years before, if war breaks out, that Mojtaba will try to control the region,” Rajabi asserted. “Let the Americans know that they should not expect that if Mojtaba takes steps back and looks to live in peace, that it is an actual intention from Mojtaba.”…

And right now Iran is indeed “trying to control the region” by repeatedly attacking seven of its Sunni Arab neighbors with missiles and drones, and by shutting down the Strait of Hormuz, which means those countries can no longer ship the oil and gas exports on which their economies are totally dependent.

Mojtaba Khomeini, unlike his late father, is a smooth man, a better liar that his father ever was, a practiced dissembler willing to feign moderation. He takes to heart Muhammad’s claim in a famous hadith that “war is deception.”

Mojtaba wants the Shi’a of Iran to physically dominate the Sunni Arabs of the region. Ideally, the Sunnis of the Middle East, and then of the world, will convert to Shi’a Islam, so that the Sh’ia, currently some 10-15% of the world’s Muslims, become the dominant sect.

Rajabi was left alone when he first began discussing corruption in general, but when he started to discuss the enormous wealth of Mojtaba himself, he was silenced. At least two attempts were made on his life — first poisoning by arsenic, and then by electrocution, but both failed, and after the second one, Rajabi managed to flee Iran.

Hezbollah should not, in Rajabi’s view, be considered an independent entity; it is completely under the direction of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

“Some [militias] are forced to work with Iran, such as Kataib Hezbollah and Nujaba. Others are allied with Iran. In my opinion, there are Shia forces ready to join the Abraham Accord and live in peace with everyone,” he claimed. “But Iran wants to ensure that if the regime collapses, they will create circumstances that force them to create a new ‘Axis of Resistance’ from Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen….

If Iran does indeed collapse, the Iranians plan to simply create a new power base in the region for the Shi’a, based on the large Shi’a populations in Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen.

“International law will be implemented in Iran, also UN resolutions. The Iranian people has to choose their future in free and fair elections under the UN supervision.”

That is not a prediction, but a hope. Rajabi thinks that the Islamic Republic may collapse, and in its place there will be “free and fair elections.” He says there are people, like the former president Ahmadinejad, who are disaffected with the regime, and are even willing to contemplate better relations with the Jewish state, and want to end Iran’s hegemonic ambitions.

Israel has not been trying to impose the Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi as a future leader of Iran. It is the Crown Prince who in his addresses to the people of Iran has noted that Iran and Israel were once allied, before Ayatollah Khomeini toppled his father, and that they could be allies again.

Rajabi has come full circle, from being a highly-placed member of the government, to an ferocious opponent of the regime. This is Rajabi’s dream: to end the Islamic Republic, every jot and little of it, and replace those “death to America” and “death to Israel” cries with a declaration of peace and friendship with both countries.

Rajabi offers both a warning and a hope. The warning is that Mojtaba Khamenei is a practiced deceiver, far better at it than his late father, and a fanatical Shi’a Muslim intent on establishing Iran’s hegemony over the entire Middle East and then over the world. He will say whatever he thinks will promote that ambition, but never abandon his messianic faith in Shi’a Islam, that in his view should supplant the Sunnis as the dominant sect, just as Islam should rule the world. The hope is that he fails.