Iran ruler's iron grip has lasted almost four decades. Who is the man Israel wants to kill?
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.
'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.
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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.
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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.
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