The shadow state within Iran

A crowd celebrating Mojtaba as his father’s successor at Enghelab Square in Teheran on March 9. — Arash Khamooshi/The New York Times

IN the political annals of the Islamic Repu­blic of Iran, one of the first notorious public episodes involving Mojtaba Khamenei, the man just named as the country’s new supreme leader, occurred during the 2005 presidential election.

After a dark-horse candidate, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, surged abruptly into a runoff and eventual victory, the reformist ­politician who unexpectedly lost wrote an open letter to the supreme leader accusing his son Mojtaba of manipulating the vote.