Soul of the Iranian Islamic Revolution of 1979, symbol of opposition to the West at all costs, guardian of orthodoxy and conservation but also intellectual, poet and musician.
Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran since 1989, was killed in the US and Israeli raid on Iran, at the age of 86, after more than 3 decades spent holding the highest office in the Islamic Republic. Charismatic and with an impeccable presence, Khamenei often appeared smiling in public, in contrast with the very serious and menacing face of Ruhollah Khomeini, the hero of the Revolution and first Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran which he founded in 1979 upon his return from exile in France.
Born in Mashhad in 1939 to a deeply religious family of Azeri origin, Khamenei received an Islamic education and never abandoned his faith in Shiite Islam as the main direction and pivot of society. Not yet twenty years old, he met Khomeini in Qom, the sacred city for Shiite Islam, and strengthened his antagonism towards Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Persia who had brought Iran closer to the West.
As the country became increasingly secular and closer to Western states, Khamenei progressively radicalized his opposition to the Shah. His dissident positions led him to prison, he was arrested six times and sentenced to three years of exile in Iranshahr, in the south of the country, but he managed to return to Tehran in time for Khomeini’s Islamic Revolution and became a member of the Revolutionary Council.
Khomeini himself appointed him Imam for the Friday prayers of the Iranian capital. When he was elected president of the Islamic Republic in 1981 – the first cleric to hold the position – the convergence between Marxism and Islamic radicalism that had helped bring Khomeini to power had already been lost and the far left had been marginalized by the new ruling class in power. While Khomeini’s consolidation of power suffocated all opponents, imposed the compulsory veil on women and transformed Iran into the symbol of the internationalist revolt against Israel and the USA, Khamenei’s political career took off.
He personally participated in the war against Iraq in the 1980s and contributed to strengthening the Revolutionary Guards, the spearhead of the Iranian armed forces. In 1985 he was elected president again while in June 1989 he was among the few present at the deathbed of Ayatollah Khomeini who chose him as his successor.
In the same room, also the son of Imam Ahmad, the future president Hashemi Rafsanjani, Mehdi Karrubi and Mir-Hussein Mousavi, the two leaders – still under house arrest – of what twenty years later will be remembered as the “green revolution”, the protest against the alleged fraud following Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s victory in the 2009 elections, suffocated in a bloodbath.
If his predecessor was the architect of the Revolution, Khamenei was its most intransigent guardian. Under his long tenure, Iran consolidated the “axis of resistance”, extending its influence into Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen, and openly challenging US hegemony and the very existence of Israel. Inside, his word was law. It was he who appointed the heads of the judiciary, led the armed forces and dictated the line to the Pasdaran (the Revolutionary Guards).
Despite the waves of popular protests that have shaken the country in recent years – from women’s rights to the economic crisis – the Supreme Leader has always responded with the doctrine of firmness, armoring the regime against any attempt at liberal reform.
He is also remembered as a passionate player of tar, the traditional Persian stringed instrument. He was forced to abandon it after an attack in 1981 from which he miraculously escaped alive but cost him the use of his right hand after an explosive device, hidden in a tape recorder, exploded while he was speaking in a mosque in Tehran.