The superb information, and due to this fact absolutely the chief of the rustic for the remaining 36 years, Ali Khamenei was once prominent by means of interior tension and brutality. It leaves the rustic bloodied, weakened and economically exhausted. A glance again at a existence divided into 3 distinct classes: opposition to the Shah till 1979, the presidency beneath Ruhollah Khomeini (1981-1989), then totalitarian rule from 1989 to the tip.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the 36-year-old Splendid Chief of Iran, was once killed in US and Israeli airstrikes on his nation on February 28, Iranian state media reported.
He was once one of the vital leaders who stayed in energy for the longest time within the nation’s centuries-old historical past. In Iranian society in contemporary a long time, he has been virtually as ubiquitous as his predecessor, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who based the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979 and led it till his loss of life in 1989. Even supposing Khomeini was once the mastermind of the Islamic Revolution and the primary Splendid Chief to be the extra robust chief of the Khame this is referred to as fashionable Iran, he’s believed to be a a lot more robust chief of the Khame for that Republic. the date.
In additional than 3 a long time on the helm of the rustic, Khamenei has accrued extraordinary energy in home coverage issues and has increasingly more suppressed even the smallest interior dissent. In recent times, he has prioritized his survival – and the survival of his regime – above all different issues. In December 2025-January 2026, his energy brutally beaten the preferred rebellion at the price of tens of hundreds of deaths.
But in spite of the ferocity of his safety forces, maximum Iranians won’t be mindful Khamenei as a robust chief. Nor will he be adored. To the contrary, he’s going to move down in historical past as the person who controlled the overall weakening of the Islamic Republic in almost all spaces.
Khamenei’s upward thrust within the hierarchy
Born in 1939 within the town of Marshad, in northeastern Iran, Khamenei shaped a political and spiritual imaginative and prescient of the sector from an early age whilst finding out within the Islamic seminaries of Najaf and Qom. On the age of 13, he was within the ideology of innovative Islam, in the course of the teachings of the cleric Nawab Safavi (1924-1956), who incessantly referred to as for political violence towards the regime of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran (who got here to energy in 1941 after the elimination of his father).
In 1958, Khamenei met Khomeini (born 1902) and in an instant embraced his philosophy, incessantly referred to as “Khomeinism,” a worldview that blends Shiite Islam, anti-colonial sentiments, and social engineering via state making plans. Khomeinism states {that a} gadget of earthly rules by myself can not create a simply society: Iran will have to derive its legitimacy from “God Almighty.” The idea that of velayat-e faqih, often referred to as the steering of jurists, is central to Khomeinism. It stipulates that the superb chief will have to be endowed with “all the authority enjoyed by the Prophet and the infallible Imams.”
Principally, which means that Iran will have to be ruled by means of one guy, essentially a student of Shiite Islam. It was once there that Khomeini, then Khamenei, exercised absolutely the regulate they’d over the Islamic Republic after its established order in 1979.
From 1962, Khamenei was once totally engaged in innovative actions towards Mohammad Reza Pahlavi on behalf of Khomeini, who was once expelled from the rustic in 1964 (then he lived in Turkey, then Iraq and France). In step with the account given in his memoirs, Khamenei was once arrested in 1971 by means of the shah’s secret police and tortured.
When the Shah was once overthrown after the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Khomeini returned from exile, established the Islamic Republic and was superb chief. Khamenei was once then elected to enroll in the Innovative Council, which dominated along the period in-between govt. He then was Deputy Minister of Protection and took part within the introduction of the Islamic Innovative Guard Corps (IRGC). This army establishment, at the start established to offer protection to the revolution and the Splendid Chief, would change into one of the crucial robust political forces in Iran.
Ali Khamenei was once hospitalized in 1981 after an assassination try on him by means of contributors of the Other people’s Mujahideen, a company adversarial to each the Shah’s regime and the Islamic Republic. Khamenei.ir, CC BI-NC-SA
After surviving an assassination try in 1981, Khamenei was once elected president of Iran in 1981 and re-elected in 1985. He served as president for far of the Iran-Iraq battle, a warfare that devastated each nations humanly and economically.
Even if subordinate to the superb chief, Khamenei may have really extensive energy in comparison to the presidents who be successful him, which can also be defined by means of the truth that the revolution continues to be contemporary and the battle in Iraq poses an existential danger to the regime. However he nonetheless stays devoted to Khomeini’s needs. He additionally controlled to determine a detailed dating with the IRGC that may remaining past his presidency.
A shocking selection for the placement of Splendid Information
Khomeini died in June 1989, with no obviously recognized successor. Khomeini first of all regarded as Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri as a possible successor. Alternatively, Montazeri was increasingly more vital of the superb chief’s authority and human rights abuses within the nation. He resigned in 1988 and was once beneath space arrest till his loss of life in 2009.
Khamenei has the political {qualifications} to carry that place. He’s additionally a robust supporter of Khomeinism. Alternatively, his appointment as superb chief by means of the Meeting of Mavens, a gaggle of Islamic clerics, has sparked really extensive controversy. Some students consider that he does now not have the clerical rank of grand ayatollah, which is needed by means of the Charter for get right of entry to to this place, and consider that the Iranian other folks won’t admire the phrases of a “simple human being” with no particular connection to God.
A referendum was once arranged in July 1989 to amend the Charter and, particularly, to permit the appointment of a superb information who demonstrated his “Islamic knowledge” with out essentially retaining the rank of Marja (the perfect clerical place in Twelver Shiism). It was once handed by means of a big majority and Khamenei took place of business.
Alternatively, he didn’t experience the similar reputation as Khomeini some of the clerical elite and most people. The constitutional amendments handed within the referendum, then again, give Khamenei a lot more energy to interfere in political issues. Actually, he’s going to have way more prerogatives as superb chief than Khomeini ever had. His accountability is particularly to outline the principle political orientations, to nominate and disregard the contributors of the Council of Guardians and to reserve the referendum. It additionally has sufficient energy to silence any dissent with relative ease.
Consolidation of energy over a long time
As superb chief, Khamenei cooperates to various levels with the rustic’s presidents and not hesitates to make use of the levers at his disposal to undermine rules that don’t go well with him.
For instance, he in large part helps the commercial program of President Khachemi Rafsanjani (1989-1997), however incessantly opposes Mohammad Khatami (1997-2005) and Hassan Rouhani (2013-2021). Each attempted to reform Iran’s political gadget and strengthen members of the family with the West.
Khamenei’s most famed intervention in home politics came about after the tip of the primary time period of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (2005-2013). After Ahmadinejad gained a debatable presidential election in 2009, hundreds of Iranians took to the streets in one of the vital biggest protest actions for the reason that revolution. Khamenei helps the election end result and harshly represses the protesters. Dozens of other folks (possibly extra) had been killed and hundreds extra had been arbitrarily arrested.
Later, Khamenei confronts Ahmadinejad and warns him to not run for president once more in 2017. Ahmadinejad disobeys him, however is ultimately blocked from operating.
After the loss of life in a helicopter crash in 2024 of President Ebrahim Raisi, a hardliner elected in 2021, Khamenei persevered to move in the back of the scenes. Reformist Massoud Pezeshkian was once elected president, however Khamenei in an instant blocked him from negotiating with the US for sanctions reduction and used his affect to thwart his financial reform schedule.
And when new demonstrations broke out on the finish of 2025 because of financial difficulties, Khamenei as soon as once more ordered, as he did in 2022, to suppress the motion that arose after the loss of life of Mahsa Amini, to repress them in each and every manner.
A tainted legacy
The powers granted to him by means of the Charter additionally allowed Khamenei to workout strange regulate over Iran’s overseas coverage.
Like his mentor Khomeini, he strongly supported the regime’s resistance to “Western imperialism”. He was once additionally one of the vital primary architects of Iran’s regional technique, investment militant teams akin to Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis and others to additional Tehran’s army objectives.
Khamenei has sometimes proven a willingness to cooperate with the West, together with negotiations with the US over Iran’s nuclear enrichment program.
All through Trump’s first time period, then again, he returned to a virulently anti-Western stance. His govt condemned Trump’s rejection of the 2015 nuclear deal, the reimposition of monetary sanctions on Iran’s power sector and the killing of IRGC Quds Pressure leader Qasem Soleimani in January 2020.
After Trump returned to energy in 2025, Iran weakened additional. And Khamenei’s anti-Western posturing started to seem increasingly more empty. Iran’s defeat within the 12-day battle towards Israel in 2025 destroyed what little legitimacy remained for its regime.
Within the months that adopted, Khamenei dominated over a inhabitants that was once increasingly more disillusioned with Iran’s political gadget and its leaders. All through the 2025-2026 protests, some brazenly chanted slogans calling for his loss of life.
When Khomeini died in 1989, tens of millions attended his state funeral. Mourners got rid of him from his coffin and rushed to assemble the holy relics.
Even if Khamenei has dominated for 4 occasions as lengthy, Iranians are not likely to turn the similar grief for him.
