Following the killing of its Supreme Leader Ayatollah [name missing], the [country’s] opaque and fragmented governing system selected radical cleric Ayatollah Alireza Arafi to its interim leadership council on Saturday.

Ben Sabti, an Iran expert at the Institute of National Security Studies in Israel, stated: “His name has been brought up over the past two or three years. He isn’t a politician in the traditional sense but is involved in exporting the revolution through the propaganda wing.” A foundational principle of the 1979 Islamic Republic’s establishment was to spread its violent Shiite ideology and foster radical Islamist revolutions across the globe.

“He has been immersed in Khomeinist ideology throughout his entire career. Khomeinism poses a threat to U.S. interests,” Jason Brodsky, policy director of United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), told [publication] Digital.

According to experts, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini—founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979—included the “Death to America” pledge as a core component of Khomeinism.

Per a UANI report, Arafi has long agitated against the U.S. and Israel. He is quoted as saying: “America will take its demand for Iran to abandon military hardware production to the grave.” In a 2019 Friday Prayer sermon, he declared: “We will stand with our imam and leader until the end, when we humiliate global arrogance. Alongside the Sayyed of the resistance, we proclaim: Oh great leader of the Islamic world, we will be with you until the arrogant forces of the world are defeated and Israel is erased.”

Brodsky continued: “The fact that Iran’s system elevated Alireza Arafi to the interim leadership council signals he could be a leading candidate to replace Ali Khamenei as supreme leader.”

Arafi is also under watch in Washington. In a Sunday interview with [publication] Digital, [name missing], chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, described Arafi as “a very hard-line cleric.”

He noted: “Arafi has risen through the ranks—heading Iran’s Seminary, leading Al-Mustafa University, and serving as a member of the Guardian Council and Assembly of Experts. Additionally, he has been the Friday Prayer Leader of Qom, the center of Iran’s clergy. This gives him the religious, educational, and governmental experience needed to replace Khamenei as supreme leader.”

According to UANI, Arafi threatened death to protesters who knock off the turbans of Iranian Islamic clerics. “Those who attack the clergy’s turbans should know that the turban will become their shroud,” Arafi stated.

Brodsky added: “Arafi helped turn Al-Mustafa University into a training ground and recruitment center for the IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps]. The U.S. government later sanctioned Al-Mustafa University under counterterrorism authorities. A weakness in his candidacy to replace Khamenei is that he has never been a core member of Iran’s military-security establishment nor led any branch of the Islamic Republic’s government apparatus.”

“He is also not a Sayyid [a title of high respect for those with lineage to the Islamic prophet Muhammad in Shiite tradition]. But his role on the interim leadership council will expose him to [missing context] to a greater extent, positioning him as a formidable contender. Alireza Arafi is an indoctrinated follower of Khomeinism and spearheaded efforts to further Islamize Iran’s university and seminary system,” he said.

According to Iran Wire, an independent Iranian diaspora news outlet: “Alireza Arafi is a prominent hardline cleric, a member of the Guardian Council, and head of Iran’s seminaries—positions that place him at the heart of the country’s religious establishment. His selection matters because the third member of the Temporary Leadership Council must be a theologian chosen by the Expediency Discernment Council, and Arafi is widely seen as a staunch loyalist to the Islamic Republic’s core ideology.”

Mardo Soghom, a veteran journalist and Iran expert, told [publication] Digital: “At this point, I can say there is no unified government with sufficient control over the country. The foreign minister admits the IRGC acts independently. Arafi would never have the authority or control Khamenei had. He is a compromise candidate the IRGC can manage and who does not threaten either of the two factions.”

Mariam Memarsadeghi, Senior Fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and founder/director of the Cyrus Forum for Iran’s Future, told [publication] Digital: “The regime—or what remains of it—is no different from a terrorist group. Now that the U.S. and Israel [missing context], every leader this terror group selects will be justly eliminated. The Iranian people are elated. All decent human beings who believe in freedom should share this joy.”