Who is Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader?
Ayatollah Khamenei helped bring about the Islamic Revolution in Iran – will he see its end?
One week after the start of Operation Rising Lion, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei appears to be increasingly isolated.
The successor to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who led the Islamic Revolution that overthrew the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, in 1979, Khamenei has lived in the shadow of his predecessor for much of the first part of his rule. However, he has also overseen significant changes to Iran’s internal politics and regional geopolitical stance, which has resulted in Iran being regarded as both one of the most powerful and one of the most threatening nations in the Middle East.
Ali Khamenei was born in the city of Mashhad to a family of modest means. Khamenei’s father was a Muslim cleric and, like his predecessor, Khamenei dedicated much of his early life to the study of Shia Islam, following the same Twelver Shia interpretation as Khomeini. He studied in the city of Qom, a major center for Shia Islam, and home to one of the largest madrasa’s (Islamic theological college) in the world. During that time, he came under the influence of Khomeini, who taught at the madrasah.
Khamenei was increasingly drawn into politics in the 1960s, during the counter-revolution of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. His public opposition to Shah Pahlavi led to several imprisonments. Following the exile of Khomeini in 1964, Khamenei became a key figure in spreading his teacher’s ideas. By the late 1970s, he was a central figure in the Islamic revolutionary movement.
Khamenei became president of Iran in 1981, after surviving an assassination attempt that left his right arm permanently paralyzed.
Khamenei came to power in 1989, following the death of the previous Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who led the country for 10 years and established much of the governing structure and political ideology of the Islamic Republic.
However, unlike Khomeini, Ali Khamenei had not yet achieved the rank of senior cleric when he was chosen by his predecessor to be the next supreme leader. In fact, Khamenei’s selection took many in Iran by surprise. He was apparently chosen for his devotion to Ayatollah Khomeini’s vision of velāyat-e faqīh (governance by religious jurists), and his personal loyalty to Khomeini.
Despite his apparent lack of qualifications, Khamenei has proven himself to be a shrewd political leader, creating a strong centralized government under his leadership, and forging strategic regional ties to counter western attempts to isolate the Islamic Republic.
Under Khamenei, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has become a more significant power than the Iranian military, while remaining under his oversight. Khamenei also abolished the office of prime minister and expanded the powers of the presidency – a role he once held – while simultaneously consolidating his own authority, including control over appointments to the judiciary, state media, and key security agencies.
While Khamenei has continued the anti-America, anti-Western position of his predecessor, he has increasingly focused his attention on Israel – understanding the role Israel had come to play in the Middle East as America’s primary ally.
During a speech in December 2000, Khamenei said, “Israel is a cancerous tumour that should be removed from the region.”
In an attempt to create the necessary conditions for Israel’s removal, Khamenei oversaw the development of the Shia Crescent strategy. This strategy sought to create a land bridge via proxies and political alignment, stretching from Iran to the Mediterranean Sea, through Iraq, and Syria under the Assad dynasty.
Although the Assads were Alawite, not Shia, Iran increasingly supported the Assad regime and helped build the Syrian security apparatus through key placement of Iranian figures. In return, Iran used Syria as a route to funnel weapons and money to its primary proxy in the region, Hezbollah.
Khamenei expanded that proxy strategy, building an “Axis of Resistance” through support of Shia proxies in Iraq, the Houthi Ansar Allah rebel group in Yemen, and smaller Shia proxies in Syria, in order to build a broad base from which to be able to destroy Israel, which remained a core goal of the Islamic Republic.
While Hamas was founded by Muslim Brotherhood members from the Sunni branch of Islam, which would appear to be at odds with Shia Islam, Khamenei was influenced by Muslim Brotherhood ideologue Sayyid Qutb – even translating two of his works into Persian. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was also influenced by Brotherhood ideas regarding the proper Islamic government, and the Muslim Brotherhood often pointed to the 1979 Islamic Revolution as proof that an Islamic theocratic government could be established in the modern world.
Khamenei enlisted Hamas in his proxy strategy, relying extensively on former Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani to handle specifics of implementing that strategy on the ground, in order to surround the Jewish state in the hopes of one day destroying it. The Quds Force is responsible for implementing Khamenei’s vision of a united Shia front to counterbalance both Western influence on the Middle East and the power of Sunni nations like Turkey and Saudi Arabia.
This strategy was intended to allow the Islamic Republic to threaten Israel and Western interests in the region, without risking war on Iranian soil. Khamenei was president of Iran during the Iran-Iraq war, and saw the devastation that war brought to his country. He proposed that, in a future conflict, Iran would project power to threaten its enemies while keeping the home country safe.
However, his strategy began to fall apart after the Hamas surprise attack on southern Israeli border communities on Oct. 7, 2023. While Iran supported Hamas, and apparently helped plan the attack strategy, it was not informed of the attack ahead of time, and found itself unprepared to take the decisive role Khamenei had anticipated.
Since the start of the Iron Swords War between Israel and Hamas, the IDF has forcefully attacked Iran’s proxies, neutralizing them as a relevant military threat. Last Friday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched Operation Rising Lion, intended to remove the threat of an Iranian nuclear weapon, the Iranian ballistic missile arsenal aimed at Israel, as well as the “head of the octopus” directing the proxy strategy.
In the opening moments of that operation, Israel eliminated much of Iran’s top military leadership. Since then, Khamenei, has been increasingly isolated and threatened. While Netanyahu has apparently not yet ordered a strike to eliminate Khamenei, he has declared that such a strike could be an option, telling ABC News, “It’s not going to escalate the conflict – it’s going to end the conflict.”
U.S. President Donald Trump also issued a veiled threat, recently stating, "We know exactly where the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ is hiding. He is an easy target, but [he] is safe there. We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now," the American president wrote to his Truth Social account.
With Trump promising to make a decision whether to enter the conflict in the coming weeks, and Israel continuing airstrikes across Iran, it appears the 46-year rule of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei could be nearing its end.
J. Micah Hancock is a current Master’s student at the Hebrew University, pursuing a degree in Jewish History. Previously, he studied Biblical studies and journalism in his B.A. in the United States. He joined All Israel News as a reporter in 2022, and currently lives near Jerusalem with his wife and children.
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