Khamenei took the helm in Iran in 1989, following the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the charismatic leader who had spearheaded the Islamic revolution a decade earlier.
While Khomeini was the ideological force behind the revolution that ended the rule of the Pahlavi monarchy, it was Khamenei who shaped the military and paramilitary apparatus that forms both Iran’s defence against its enemies and provides it with influence well beyond its borders.
Before becoming the supreme leader, he had led Iran as president through a bloody war with Iraq in the 1980s. The grinding conflict, coupled with a sense of isolation among many Iranians as Western countries backed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, deepened Khamenei’s distrust of the West, generally, and the US, in particular, analysts say. That sentiment would underpin his decades-long rule and cement the idea that Iran must remain in a constant state of defence against external and internal threats.
“People think [of Iran] as a theocracy, because he [Khamenei] wears the turban and the language of the state is the language of religion, but in reality, he was a wartime president that came out of war with the assumption that Iran is vulnerable and in need of security,” said Vali Nasr, Iranian affairs expert and author of Iran’s Grand Strategy: A Political History. “That the US is hostile to Iran; and that the revolution, the Islamic republic and nationalism, are not separated” and that so, they need to be protected.
Under this vision, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) evolved from a paramilitary force into a powerful security, political and economic institution that became central to broader Iran’s influence across the region. Khamenei also promoted a “resistance economy” to foster self-reliance in the face of punishing Western sanctions, maintained a strong scepticism of engagement with the West, and responded forcefully to critics who argued his focus on defence was blocking much-needed reforms. But his rule was seriously tested over the years, including in 2009, when protesters who took to the streets over what they claimed was a rigged presidential election were met with a brutal crackdown, and in 2022 over women’s rights.
Possibly the biggest challenge to his rule came in January when protests triggered by economic hardship morphed into nationwide upheaval, with many protesters directly calling for the overthrow of the Islamic republic. The authorities’ response led to one of the most violent confrontations since the country’s 1979 revolution.
Critics saw him as being too out-of-touch with a young population seeking reforms and economic improvement over isolationism and forever shadow wars with the US and Israel.
“Iranians paid too high a cost for this degree of insistence on national independence – in the process, he lost the Iranian population because they no longer believed in the wisdom of this independence,” Nasr said.
Source: Here
