Iran ruler’s iron grip has lasted almost four decades. Who is the man Israel wants to kill?
As Tehran burns, the man Israeli troops want to kill uploads propaganda to social media.
From a secure location, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei denounces the Israeli regime and the United States government while sharing passages of the Koran across his X accounts in English, Farsi, Arabic, Bengali and Azerbaijani.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has denounced the Israeli regime and the US government. Credit: AP
Meanwhile, his enemies in Israel and the White House claim they could easily kill him if they desire.
How did Khamenei become supreme leader, and just how powerful is he?
How did he rise to power?
To understand Khamenei’s rise to power, it’s first important to understand how Iran’s governance has evolved in the past century.
In 1953, Britain and the US assisted the Iranian military in a coup to overthrow Iran’s elected prime minister and give immense control to the shah, or king, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who had supported Western oil interests.
But over time, the shah became increasingly tyrannical and unrest blossomed among Iran’s people, while its leaders held lavish and highly Westernised parties.
An uprising led by supporters of religious leader (and Khamenei’s predecessor) Ruhollah Khomeini led to the shah fleeing the country and Khomeini taking power in 1979. The shah fled to Egypt and later lived in several countries, including the US, before settling in Egypt, where he died in 1980.
Khomeini abolished the monarchy in favour of an Islamic republic system he had devised, and was soon embroiled in hostilities with the US. The era of the ayatollahs (high-ranking Shiite Muslim religious scholars) began.
For years, Khamenei served as Iran’s president under Khomeini, until the first supreme leader’s death in 1989. Khamenei was then appointed leader, a role in which he has served for nearly four decades.
Demonstrators perched atop of the US embassy wall in Tehran burn an American flag in 1979.Credit: Getty Images
“That was somewhat controversial at the time because the Iranian Constitution stipulated the education requirements that the supreme leader needed to be a top Islamic scholar,” said Dara Conduit, a University of Melbourne research fellow specialising in Iran and the Middle East.
How much control does he wield?
Because Khamenei was appointed controversially, he was viewed as weak and lacking credibility at the beginning of his rule. But, said Conduit, he shed that label and has become immensely powerful.
Khamenei holds ultimate authority over all branches of government, the military and the judiciary. While elected officials manage day-to-day affairs, no major policy – especially one involving the United States – proceeds without his explicit approval.
Iran’s hardline Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the paramilitary Basij answer directly to Khamenei. He exercises control of the Setad, the clandestine state-owned financial enterprise worth tens of billions of dollars.
How has he remained in power?
His leadership style has blended ideological rigidity with strategic pragmatism. He is deeply sceptical of the West, particularly the US, which he accuses of seeking regime change. Yet he has shown a willingness to bend when the survival of the Islamic republic is at stake.
In 2013, Khamenei first mentioned the concept of “heroic flexibility”, which permits tactical compromises to advance his goals. His cautious endorsement of Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with six countries, including the US, was an example of this.
He has maintained his concrete grip on power despite disdain from many of his own citizens, according to the Group for Analysing and Measuring Attitudes in Iran, a Dutch independent research group. When Iran president Ebrahim Raisi died in a helicopter crash last year, many Iranians celebrated. And when Israel attacked Tehran last week, some locals partied, chanting “death to Khamenei”.
But he has quelled internal protests by deploying his Revolutionary Guard, notably against the huge 2009 Green Movement protests regarding the disputed re-election of president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Then in 2022, Khamenei arrested, imprisoned and sometimes executed protesters enraged by the death of young Iranian-Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini.
Despite his poor standing among his citizens, Khamenei has not faced instability within the regime. “If you look at the protest movements that are anti the regime, they are very anti-Khamenei, but the regime itself has been relatively unified in relation to his position,” said Conduit.
It is unclear who a likely successor would be for the 86-year-old, who has received treatment for prostate cancer in the past.
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With Reuters