Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is the Supreme Leader of Iran, the head of state, and the commander-in-chief of its armed forces. He has been in power since 1989, and his time as leader has been marked by both progress and setbacks.
One of Khamenei’s most significant achievements was the development of Iran’s nuclear program. Under his leadership, Iran has become one of the few countries in the world with the capability to produce nuclear weapons. However, the program has also been a source of controversy, and Iran has been accused of violating the terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Khamenei has also been a strong supporter of the Palestinian cause. He has frequently denounced Israel and has called for the destruction of the state. In 2009, he was criticized for his response to the Israeli attack on a building in an Iranian diplomatic compound in Damascus. Khamenei vowed that Iran would retaliate against Israel, and Iran launched a number of missiles at Israel in response.
Khamenei is a controversial figure, but there is no doubt that he is one of the most important leaders in the Middle East. His legacy will be shaped by the way he handles the challenges facing Iran in the years to come.
Despite his protestations otherwise, Khamenei wants escalation. The hard-line mullahs that support him believe that the coming of a messianic leader will inaugurate the end of days. Khamenei is 84 years old and has frequently hinted that, before he dies, he wants to achieve a legacy: the dominance of the Iranian state over the Middle East, and the expulsion of Israel — and ultimately America — from the region.
He prefers the hard-line Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri to succeed him, but Montazeri’s growing power dynamic undermines Khamenei’s own authority. Political candidates and all highly paid government jobs in Iran are given to close supporters of the Ayatollah Khamenei, a strict fundamentalist. He is backed up by a powerful militia called the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the devout Basij, the mojtaheds (Shia canon law specialists), the hezbollah (morality police) and a vast bureaucracy — all paid for by billions of dollars of uranium and oil revenue.
So, what is his likely legacy? One possibility is that the mullahs will be overthrown and imprisoned by a military coup from within the Revolutionary Guards. Millions of Iranians would support this. However, military rule, led by someone like Guards General Qassem Soleimani, is just swapping one dictatorship for another. In many ways it will just enshrine the status quo, but without the mullahs. The Guards directly, and indirectly, control 60 percent of Iranian contracts in the fields of construction, electricity supply, engineering, telecommunications, and the media.
The second possibility is a state-wide civil war, in which Khamenei and his followers are violently removed, resulting a fractured state like neighboring Iraq. In this scenario, the Iranian army (the Artesh) would fight the Revolutionary Guards; while the Artesh are numerically larger, the Guards are better equipped. Also, it might see the re-emergence of factional blocs like the Peshmerga style militias, and marginal groups such as ISIS, the Kurds, and the Jundallah (Army of Justice). Nobody in Iran, or in the West, wants this destabilizing scenario.
Finally, and more likely, Ayatollah Khamenei will die peacefully, and the mullahs, and their loyal bureaucracy, will retain control. Most Iranians, young and old, are patriotic, support Palestine, and believe in their version of Islam. The two scenarios above rightly frighten them. They would hope that Khamenei’s successors adopt a more liberal philosophy.
Iran may continue to fund their proxies — the Houthis, Hezbollah and Hamas — to attack Israel and America, but there is no guarantee of their loyalty to Iran if a new regime does not fund them. Hezbollah is corrupt and hates Iran’s interference in Lebanon. The Houthis and the Iranians are Shia, but they consider each other heretics. Furthermore, Hamas are mainly Sunni Muslims and do not want to be controlled by Shia.
An undercurrent of dissatisfaction with the mullahs inside Iran will remain, regardless the fate of Khamenei. In a country that is mineral and oil rich, many young people are unemployed. The jobs that are available go to the theocracy that support Khamenei. Outside that theocracy, taxi driving is considered a reasonable low-paying job; it is not surprising that many recent political uprisings opposing the Iranian elite rule have been backed by taxi drivers. They particularly feel the pain of inflation, aggravated by international sanctions, and the gradual clawback of state fuel subsidies.
In the big cities, many taxi drivers and other private haulage drivers regularly take part in the Friday protests. These protests were instigated and supported by women, and the disenfranchised. The response by Khamenei and his theocracy has been swift and violent. Thousands have been imprisoned, and hundreds killed. In 2022 to 2023, Iran’s judiciary sentenced a number of these protesters to death on the charge of “war against God,” and at least two of them were hanged.
Whatever happens in the near future, Ali Khamenei’s legacy within and outside Iran is a house of cards. America would be wise to let it collapse on its own.
