Ayatollah Ali Khamenei: All about Iran's supreme leader

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader for the better half of four decades now, claimed that Israel “won’t last long” in front of thousands of supporters gathered in a mosque on Friday (June 13). This follows after Israel recently killed the Iran-backed veteran secretary general of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, and bombed its headquarters in Beirut. This was followed by an airstrike launched against Iran on the same day which ended up destroying a third of their missile launchers.

In response, Tehran chose to strike back by launching missiles and drones. But who is the man who pushed the button?

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Born as the son of a humble cleric in the shrine city of Mashhad, Khamenei had a modest upbringing. His religious schooling in Qom helped shape his views regarding Shia Islam under the aegis of then-opposition leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Under his influence, Khamenei started running secret missions for Islamic activism, grew an increasing intolerance against the Westernization of Islamic cultures, and protested against Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi. The Shah was ultimately overthrown and Khomeini was welcomed from his exile in France by a sea of jubilant crowd.

Under Khomeini’s leadership, Khamenei quickly rose through the ranks by assuming key roles in the Islamic Revolutionary Council, as deputy defense minister, and being targeted as part of an assassination attempt against revolutionary figures at the time. Following this, he won a landslide victory to become the president by securing 95% of votes. Khomeini’s subsequent death in 1989 made Khamenei the supreme leader of the country, a position he originally considered himself unqualified to presume due to his humble background in religious matters.

Inspired by the anti-colonial works of Leo Tolstoy, Victor Hugo, and Sayyid Qutb, Khamenei’s criticism of the West was ingrained long back. Most of the strife between the West and Iran has existed in the form of sanctions imposed against the latter due to its attempts to attain nuclear power. President Trump’s violation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action from 2015 created a deep-seated mistrust in how Iran viewed the West. Khamenei completely shut down subsequent attempts by the Biden administration to mend old wounds.

Known as a man of simple means and living, he lives in a compound on Palestine Street with his wife and children. Although many doubts have risen time and again about the authenticity of his ascetic lifestyle, there’s no doubt that it is a far stretch from the ostentatious wealth of other officials.

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The Iran-Israel conflict was brought into existence on the very first day of the founding of the Islamic Republic. Khamenei’s repeated support to the “axis of resistance” namely the Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Houthi movement in Iraq along with revolutionary Islamic uprisings in Iraq and Syria is a direct threat to Israel’s claims of independence from Palestine. This conflict remains at the center of the “unification of areas” concept proposed by Iran which calls for closer ties in the Middle East. Israel’s targeted response to crushing groups backed by the Iranian regime has added strain to tensions between the two.

Although there is no one declared successor to Khamenei as of yet, it’s clear that Iran’s next supreme leader is bound to come from a conservative bent of mind as well.

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