“Khamenei’s worldview was shaped by his militant anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism, which first manifested itself in his protests against the Shah of Iran,” he added.
View of Iranian President Ali Khamenei during a welcoming ceremony for his state visit, Beijing, China, May 11, 1989. (Forrest Anderson/Getty Images)
Born on April 19, 1939 in Mashhad, eastern Iran, Khamenei was among the Islamist activists who played a central role in the 1979 revolution that toppled US-backed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Khamenei, a close ally of Iran’s first supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, endured the new system and served as president from 1981 to 1989 before becoming supreme leader after Khomeini’s death that same year.
In power for decades, Khamenei consolidated control over Iran’s political and security system, presiding over repeated crackdowns on dissent and maintaining a tough stance on Washington and Jerusalem.
“Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s rule was marked by ruthless brutality and repression, both within Iran and beyond its borders,” said Lisa Daftari, an Iranian expert and editor-in-chief of The Foreign Desk. She pointed to executions and the enforcement of strict social controls as defining features of the system led by Khamenei.
However, his ultra-conservative leadership style faced challenges. In 2009, after the disputed elections in which Khamenei declared the victory of the incumbent president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, mass protests broke out across the country.
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In this photo taken by a non-Associated Press employee and obtained by the AP outside Iran, Iranians protest the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini after she was detained by vice police in Tehran on Oct. 1, 2022. (The associated press)
Mass demonstrations also broke out in 2022 after Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman, died while being held by vice police for allegedly wearing her headscarf inappropriately. The protests were brutally suppressed, with many of them arrested and executed by his regime.
In late December, Iran was once again rocked by protests and a fierce, brutal security response. According to a study by Iran International, as many as 30,000 people were killed in two days from January 8 to 9, 2026.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro (L) meets with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei during his visit to Tehran, Iran on October 22, 2016. (Pool/Supreme Leader News Agency/Anadolu Agency/Getty Image)
International observers and rights groups have also repeatedly documented high execution rates in Iran in recent years. Amnesty International said Iranian authorities will have executed more than 1,000 people in 2025, calling it the highest annual figure the organization has recorded in at least 15 years. In addition, a UN report states that Iran will have executed at least 975 people in 2024, the highest number since 2015.
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Iranians gather while blocking a street during a protest in Tehran, Iran on January 9, 2026. (MAHSA / Middle East Images / AFP via Getty Images)
Across the region, Khamenei invested heavily in Iran’s network of allied militias and armed groups, a strategy used to project Iranian power beyond its borders. From the West Bank and Gaza, where he supported terror groups like Hamas, to Hezbollah in Lebanon and Houthi extremists in Yemen, as well as other militant militias in Iraq, Iran under Khamenei has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the terror groups.
However, his valued allies, as well as Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, collapsed under Israeli military pressure after the October 7, 2023 attack. During a 12-day war in June 2025, Israel also managed to eliminate some of Khamenei’s closest aides and senior security officials, leaving the long-serving leader significantly weakened.
Yet analysts argue that Khamenei’s most lasting legacy may be the institutional machinery he built at home to protect the system.
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Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei appears in public for the first time in weeks with new American threats. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader Credit/ASSOCIATED PRESS)
A recent United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) report, written by Saeid Golkar and Kasra Aarabi, describes the Bayt, the Office of the Supreme Leader, as a parallel structure embedded in Iran’s military, economy, religious institutions and bureaucracy.
Aarabi also warned that “just eliminating Khamenei is not enough in itself,” and called for a broader strategy targeting the broader apparatus surrounding the supreme leader. “You have to dismantle this elaborate apparatus that he has created,” he said.
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“Unlike Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, Khamenei has institutionalized his power. Today, the Islamic Republic is more a product of Khamenei than of Khomeini,” added Ben Taleblu of FDD.
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