The Developing Cracks in Khamenei’s Cult of Personality

Washington Institute for Near East Policy

UANI Senior Advisor Dr. Saeid Golkar and UANI Director of IRGC Research write: "Until now, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had been happy with the comparisons his hard-core supporters make between him and Ali ibn Abi Talib—Shia Islam’s first divinely ordained Imam. Ironically, this insistence on Khamenei’s infallability, combined with the current acquiescence to strategic flexibility or policy concession, is eroding that sense of trust with Khamenei’s core base of hardline supporters."