At the heart of the Iranian regime’s defiant stance toward the United States and Israel in the war is Mojtaba Khamenei, the new supreme leader and a son of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the regime’s longtime ruler. Farnaz Fassihi, who covers Iran for The New York Times, discusses the extraordinary jockeying that led to his selection and whether the United States and Israel helped motivate Iran to replace one hard-line leader with another. Guest: Farnaz Fassihi (https://www.nytimes.com/by/farnaz-fassihi) , the United Nations bureau chief for The New York Times. She also covers Iran and how countries around the world deal with conflicts in the Middle East. Background reading:  • Inside the deliberations, power plays and rivalries that led to the ascension of the younger Khamenei (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/16/world/middleeast/iran-mojtaba-khamenei-election-supreme-leader.html) . • Who is Iran’s new supreme leader (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/08/world/middleeast/mojtaba-khamenei-iran-supreme-leader.html) ? Photo: Saeid Zareian/picture-alliance/dpa, via Associated Press Images For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily (http://nytimes.com/thedaily?smid=pc-thedaily) . Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.  Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts (http://nytimes.com/podcasts) or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.