A crucial question is: Who will be Iran's new Supreme Leader? Iran's 88-member Assembly of Experts is obligated to select a candidate as quickly as possible. There are several candidates, and I have one in mind. However, I want to make it clear: I cannot guarantee that he will be elected. It is possible that someone else will be chosen.
The person I suspect could become the new Supreme Leader of Iran is Mohammad Mahdi Mirbagheri. My reasoning: Given Iran's serious situation and Israel's huge provocations, the Assembly of Experts will decide to select the most radical of all. And the most radical of all candidates is Mohammad Mahdi. He is even more radical than Ali Khamenei was. Another reason is that he is an Ayatollah (high-ranking Shiite cleric) and a Sayyid (descendant of the Islamic prophet Muhammad). He is one of very few candidates to hold both titles.
As already emphasized, he is very radical in his views. He is the "theorist of the apocalypse." An ultra-hardline cleric willing to sacrifice much to fulfill Shiite eschatology. A war against Israel and America, even against the entire world, is a divine necessity for him, even if half of humanity were to perish. If he were elected, the current war would undoubtedly escalate to new dimensions.
But what's also very interesting about this candidate is his name. He's called Mohammad Mahdi. He's named after the apocalyptic figure spoken of by the Islamic prophet Muhammad. The Mahdi is said to come from Khorasan (which encompasses Iran and Central Asia), revive the Caliphate, attack Israel, and annihilate the people of Israel.
However, mass media seems to be suggesting the more liberal Khomeini, who seems like he would be a grave disappointment.
I think that the son of Khamenei is also considered a strong contender, with the caveat that the Islamic Republic doesn't want to set up a dynasty because that resembles the same monarchy that they overthrew.
The Mahdi is a non-scriptural character - I don't see why any Muslim should believe in the Mahdi, Sufyani, the anti-Christ, Second Coming of Jesus, and other non-Quranic persons and events, although Muslims in practice are mired in ideas such as these - and *many* people purporting to have been the Mahdi, perhaps, most famously, the Sudanese Mahdi, have popped up over the centuries.
Views on false Mahdis are mixed: some Muslims declare them kafirs, other Muslims say that false Mahdis are justified by *taqiyya* - i.e. if declaring yourself the Mahdi helps to rid a country of an occupier like the British in the Sudan as the Sudanese false Mahdi's claim did, then it is justified.
Nevertheless, if we take the *hadith* tradition to be true for the sake of argument, the Mahdi has to be predated by Sufyani. Sufyani is believed to arise in or around Syria or Iraq.
Sufyani obviously wasn't either of the Assads or of the Syrian Ba'athi in general, because Sufyani is someone whose armies will fight those of the Mahdi. If Iran is where the Mahdi arises, Sufyani can't be an ally of theirs, as were the Syrian Ba'athi. Sufyani has to be in power when the Mahdi is, so their times in office do not add up, either. As for al-Jolani, he fits few if any at all of the physical characteristics, even if his armies were to one day invade Iran. I think that Sufyani also needs to invade modern-day Saudi Arabia, which is where he will suffer a major military defeat. Can you imagine Syria and Iran battling inside Saudi Arabia?
The answer seems to me this: there can be no Mahdi before Sufyani, ergo, this man can at most be yet another false Mahdi if he is elected Supreme Leader soon.
Basically, you can just write this hypothesis off. If there is a Sufyani, Mahdi, etc., they aren't on the visible horizon. Al-Jolani isn't Sufyani, and I can't see any Iraqi candidate, either. Sufyani has to be in power when the Mahdi is so that the Mahdi can defeat him, and so the Mahdi isn't in sight, either.
Personally, I see the hadiths as containing all sorts of ambiguity and errors: for instance, what did Muhammad *really* say at his Final Sermon? I leave you with the Quran? The Quran and my family? The Quran and my *Sunnah*? They shouldn't be regarded as on the level of religious scripture, a mistake many or most Muslims make.