Khamenei sought to turn Iran into a regional powerhouse

The 36-year rule of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei built Iran into a powerful anti-US force, spreading its military sway across West Asia, while using an iron fist to crush unrest at home. He was killed on Saturday, aged 86, Iranian state media announced Sunday, in air strikes by Israel and the US.

Khamenei dramatically remoulded the Islamic Republic since he took the reins after the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989. He ended up ruling far longer than Khomeini expanding the Shia clerical class and built the paramilitary revolutionary guard into the most important body underpinning his rule.





Ali Khamenei was born into a religious family in the northeastern holy city of Mashhad, a hotbed of revolutionary fervour during the struggle against the Western-allied shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. He studied under Khomeini at the seminary in the holy city of Qom before Khomeini’s exile to Iraq and France.

Khamenei joined the anti-shah movement, facing time in both prison and in hiding. When Khomeini returned to Iran in triumph in 1979 and proclaimed the Islamic Republic, Khamenei was appointed to the secretive revolutionary council. In 1981, he was elected Iran’s third president; that same year, a bombing by opponents left him with one hand paralysed.

After being named supreme leader after Khomeini’s death, he bounded overnight to the level of grand ayatollah, at the top of the hierarchy, and for years had to deal with scepticism over his credentials. Khamenei acknowledged the doubts with humility. Khamenei stabilised Iran after the 1980s war with Iraq and governed for over three decades. Hard-liners considered him second only to God in his authority. Khamenei created an ever-growing bureaucracy of Shia clerics and governmental agencies that left him as the ultimate arbiter.

Under Khamenei’s reign, Iran shifted fully from conventional warfare to support for proxies, building the so-called ‘Axis of Resistance’ to advance its interests in the region. Khamenei’s first major challenge came in 1997, when pro-reform politicians gained control of parliament and cleric Mohammad Khatami was elected president by a landslide. The reformists demanded a loosening of the strict social rules imposed by the revolution. Khamenei-backed hard-liners moved to contain the liberal movement, fearing it would eventually call for an end to clerical rule. His regime was marred by several protests seeking reforms.

He remained deeply suspicious of the US, referring to it as the “Great Satan” . He shrugged off US sanctions and pushed ahead with Iran’s nuclear program, which the US and its allies say hid a secret project to build a nuclear weapon up until 2003. Khamenei vowed the country would never give up its right to develop “peaceful nuclear energy programme.” Western powers made attempts to discourage Khamenei to obtain the same. The ongoing conflict in which Khamenei was killed has roots in Iran’s quest to go nuclear.