On this picture launched by the official web site of the workplace of the Iranian supreme chief, Supreme Chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks to a bunch of individuals and officers in Tehran, Iran, Friday, March 21, 2025.
Workplace of the Iranian Supreme Chief/By way of AP
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Workplace of the Iranian Supreme Chief/By way of AP
The subsequent part of the confrontation with Iran relies upon partly on Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Iran’s supreme chief agreed to a ceasefire with Israel and averted a giant response to a strike by the U.S. He has not but settled on the way forward for the nuclear program they attacked, which suggests the confrontation is way from over.
Khamenei, 86, shouldn’t be the one voice in Iran’s nationwide safety institution, however is assumed to have the ultimate phrase.
Over time, I’ve sometimes visited Iran for NPR, and had some alternative to study Khamenei. As soon as I was allowed right into a polling place to look at him vote. He dropped the poll in a field together with his left hand — his proper hand having been immobilized by a long-ago assassination try — and turned to the assembled press corps to briefly curse the US. Opposition to America and Israel are foundational concepts of his authorities.
Murals throughout Iran function his seemingly benevolent white-bearded face. As soon as I noticed his phrases on a kind of murals, which translated as: “We won’t get together with America for one single second.”
Some key details about him observe, primarily based on previous reporting on his very lengthy profession, together with contemporary evaluation from this week.
He has been in energy since 1989
Khamenei is barely the second supreme chief since Iran’s Islamic revolution in 1979. He succeeded the similarly-named however unrelated Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who had been the main determine within the overthrow of Iran’s final king, or Shah.
He sits atop an intricate energy construction
Underneath the structure framed by his predecessor, Khamenei is to be the supreme information for a authorities with many divisions of energy. There’s an elected president and parliament, in addition to a court docket system and central financial institution. There’s a nationwide safety council, and an “Meeting of Specialists,” clerics who select every supreme chief. There’s a military, but additionally a separate Revolutionary Guard Corps and competing intelligence providers. These establishments present checks and balances in a manner that may nearly appear to attract on American traditions of presidency — with the profound distinction that each one establishments in Iran are in the end subordinate to only one energy, Khamenei’s.
He got here from a clerical household
Khamenei grew up within the Shiite Muslim holy metropolis of Mashhad, the place his four-room childhood residence has been preserved. Once I visited, folks had been praying there. His father was an ayatollah, a non secular determine with an exalted title and restricted earnings. Khamenei attended theological faculty. Although he didn’t have a distinguished clerical profession, he grew to become a protege of Khomeini, the revolutionary chief. He was elected president, then Khomeini’s successor.
He nonetheless holds immense energy — and now controls a enterprise empire
Karim Sadjadpour, a longtime Iran scholar, has lengthy noticed that Khamenei has much more management of the state than a U.S. president:
“He additionally has management over the media. He has management over the judiciary, the legislature. He likes to venture this picture of a magnanimous grandfather who is just guiding the nation benevolently. However in actuality, behind the scenes, nothing can get achieved with out his consent, and should you cross him, he could be extraordinarily vindictive.”
Barbara Slavin, who research Iran on the Stimson Middle in Washington, provides an necessary nuance: Iran does have politics and competing factors of view, which drive Khamenei to rule by “consensus” of the navy, political and clerical leaders on his nationwide safety council.
That stated, he controls each militias and intelligence businesses to assist implement his will.
He additionally has great affect within the enterprise world by state-controlled charitable foundations, which have captured a few of Iran’s oil wealth. “They’re one of many greatest conglomerates on this planet,” stated the late Sadegh Samii, who spoke for an NPR profile of Khamenei in 2009. Samii was a Tehran businessman who stated the supreme chief of the oil-rich republic directs “drinks, banks, steelmakers, automakers, agriculture, a number of issues.”
He as soon as made a nuclear settlement with the U.S., however insisted on Iran’s proper to nuclear improvement
Khamenei has at all times expressed profound mistrust of the U.S., which inserts the “Demise to America” rhetoric of his authorities. However he consented to a nuclear settlement with the US and different powers, one from which President Trump withdrew throughout his first time period.
Over time, he has additionally resisted surrendering Iran’s uranium enrichment applications, even whereas denying accusations that Iran was searching for a weapon.
He’s centered on survival of the “revolution” — and succession
Barbara Slavin notes that, at 86, he has taken the step of naming three attainable successors. The selection ultimately will likely be as much as the Meeting of Specialists however Khamenei will affect the selection, having influenced the membership of the meeting.
The Islamic Republic’s leaders nonetheless communicate of themselves as a revolutionary authorities, although their rise to energy was 46 years in the past. Barbara Slavin perceives a motive in Khamenei’s actions after the U.S. assault: Ordering solely a symbolic response, then approving a ceasefire with Israel.
“The regime needs to outlive,” stated Slavin. “This has been an extremely punishing 12 days for the Islamic Republic of Iran. [From their perspective,] they should regroup. They want to determine whether or not there may be the potential of a negotiated decision. I’ve my doubts, frankly. And so I feel that is one thing that was required to be able to protect the regime to struggle one other day.”
This piece was edited and prouduced for radio and digital by HJ Mai, Taylor Haney and Majd Al-Waheidi.
