The next phase of the confrontation with Iran depends in part on Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Iran's supreme leader agreed to a ceasefire with Israel and avoided a big response to a strike by the U.S. He has not yet settled on the future of the nuclear program they attacked, which means the confrontation is far from over.
Khamenei, 86, is not the only voice in Iran's national security establishment, but is thought to have the final word.
Over the years, I have occasionally visited Iran for NPR, and had some opportunity to learn about Khamenei. Once I was allowed into a polling place to watch him vote. He dropped the ballot in a box with his left hand — his right hand having been immobilized by a long-ago assassination attempt — and turned to the assembled press corps to briefly curse the United States. Opposition to America and Israel are foundational ideas of his government.
Murals across Iran feature his seemingly benevolent white-bearded face. Once I saw his words on one of those murals, which translated as: "We will not get along with America for one single second."
Some key facts about him follow, based on past reporting on his very long career, along with fresh analysis from this week.
He has been in power since 1989
Khamenei is only the second supreme leader since Iran's Islamic revolution in 1979. He succeeded the similarly-named but unrelated Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who had been the leading figure in the overthrow of Iran's last king, or Shah.
He sits atop an intricate power structure
Under the constitution framed by his predecessor, Khamenei is to be the supreme guide for a government with many divisions of power. There is an elected president and parliament, as well as a court system and central bank. There is a national security council, and an "Assembly of Experts," clerics who choose each supreme leader. There is an army, but also a separate Revolutionary Guard Corps and competing intelligence services. These institutions provide checks and balances in a way that would almost seem to draw on American traditions of government — with the profound difference that all institutions in Iran are ultimately subordinate to just one power, Khamenei's.
He came from a clerical family
Khamenei grew up in the Shiite Muslim holy city of Mashhad, where his four-room childhood home has been preserved. When I visited, people were praying there. His father was an ayatollah, a religious figure with an exalted title and limited income. Khamenei attended theological school. Though he did not have a distinguished clerical career, he became a protege of Khomeini, the revolutionary leader. He was elected president, then Khomeini's successor.
He still holds immense power — and now controls a business empire
Karim Sadjadpour, a longtime Iran scholar, has long observed that Khamenei has far more control of the state than a U.S. president:
"He also has control over the media. He has control over the judiciary, the legislature. He likes to project this image of a magnanimous grandfather who is simply guiding the country benevolently. But in reality, behind the scenes, nothing can get done without his consent, and if you cross him, he can be extremely vindictive."
Barbara Slavin, who studies Iran at the Stimson Center in Washington, adds an important nuance: Iran does have politics and competing points of view, which force Khamenei to rule by "consensus" of the military, political and clerical leaders on his national security council.
That said, he controls both militias and intelligence agencies to help enforce his will.
He also has tremendous influence in the business world through state-controlled charitable foundations, which have captured some of Iran's oil wealth. "They're one of the biggest conglomerates in the world," said the late Sadegh Samii, who spoke for an NPR profile of Khamenei in 2009. Samii was a Tehran businessman who said the supreme leader of the oil-rich republic directs "beverages, banks, steelmakers, automakers, agriculture, lots of things."
He once made a nuclear agreement with the U.S., but insisted on Iran's right to nuclear development
Khamenei has always expressed profound distrust of the U.S., which fits the "Death to America" rhetoric of his government. But he consented to a nuclear agreement with the United States and other powers, one from which President Trump withdrew during his first term.
Over time, he has also resisted surrendering Iran's uranium enrichment programs, even while denying accusations that Iran was seeking a weapon.
He is focused on survival of the "revolution" — and succession
Barbara Slavin notes that, at 86, he has taken the step of naming three possible successors. The choice eventually will be up to the Assembly of Experts but Khamenei will influence the choice, having influenced the membership of the assembly.
The Islamic Republic's leaders still speak of themselves as a revolutionary government, though their rise to power was 46 years ago. Barbara Slavin perceives a motive in Khamenei's actions after the U.S. attack: Ordering only a symbolic response, then approving a ceasefire with Israel.
"The regime wants to survive," said Slavin. "This has been an incredibly punishing 12 days for the Islamic Republic of Iran. [From their perspective,] they need to regroup. They need to figure out whether there is the possibility of a negotiated resolution. I have my doubts, frankly. And so I think this is something that was required in order to preserve the regime to fight another day."
This piece was edited and prouduced for radio and digital by HJ Mai, Taylor Haney and Majd Al-Waheidi.
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