This resource aims to contextualize Ayatollah Khamenei’s role in Iran’s emergence as a major source of instability in the Middle East. Motivated by the need for political survival, Khamenei has resisted calls for domestic reform and international cooperation. Despite failing to deliver promised benefits to the citizens of Iran, he has managed to maintain his grip on power in the face of growing unrest, largely by enhancing the role of the IRGC.

Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, only two individuals have held the role of Supreme Leader of Iran. The first was Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, who served from the beginning of the Islamic Republic in April 1979 until his death on June 3, 1989. His successor, Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Hosseini Khamenei, was a member of Khomeini’s inner circle who took over as Supreme Leader the following day and has held the role since. Khamenei, a lover of poetry and literature, became a Shi’a cleric at the age of 11.

The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran is based on the concept of velayat-e faqih (Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist), which grants a learned Islamic jurist (faqih) – a cleric tasked with interpretation of sharia (divine Islamic law) – with the role of Supreme Leader. The Supreme Leader of Iran holds final religious and political authority over all affairs of the state, ruling essentially by divine right.