Built Iran’s policy around resisting American and Israeli influence.
Held ultimate authority and crushed repeated waves of protest.
Expanded Iran’s reach through allied governments and militant groups across the Middle East.
Americans will not be pleased unless Iran surrenders… such an occurrence will never take place: he insisted, after a fragile ceasefire in 2025.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei built his legacy on one unyielding theme: Resistance to the United States and Israel.
In his Nowruz address in 2015, he clarified the revolutionary slogan: “Death to America means death to US policies, death to arrogance”.
And in January, in what would be among his final warnings, he declared on state television: “If they start a war, this time it will be a regional war.”
In August 2016, he warned: “Americans cannot be trusted… With calm appearance and soft tongue, America damages us behind the scenes.”
Even critics who faulted his hardline posture and domestic crackdowns concede that Khamenei positioned himself as a solitary bulwark against Western power. A leader who refused compromise even under mounting sanctions, protests and military threats.
His Word Was Law
Presidents came and went, but Khamenei remained the fixed centre of power, shaping both domestic repression and foreign confrontation.
Throughout his 36-year rule, he transformed Iran into the Middle East’s most vocal anti-US force. Denouncing Washington as the “Great Satan,” he backed regional militant networks across Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, and championed Iran’s nuclear programme as a sovereign right. Though he cautiously supported the 2015 nuclear deal, he never softened his distrust of the US, particularly after President Donald Trump withdrew from the agreement in 2018 and reimposed sanctions.
Rise to Supreme Leadership
Born in 1939 in Mashhad to a clerical family, Khamenei was shaped early by religious scholarship and political dissent. He was arrested multiple times under the Shah, and endured imprisonment and internal exile for opposing the monarchy of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
He played an active role in the 1979 Islamic Revolution led by Ruhollah Khomeini, which overthrew the monarchy and established the Islamic Republic.
Velayat-e faqih is a core principle of Iran’s constitution that gives ultimate authority to a senior Shia Islamic jurist as the nation’s supreme leader. It holds that a qualified cleric should serve as both the religious and political guardian of the state with powers that place him above other branches of government and make him the final decision-maker on all major matters of state and society.
After Khomeini’s death in 1989, even though then seen as a relatively weak cleric, Khamenei was elevated to Supreme Leader. But over time, he consolidated authority across the military, judiciary and parliament, becoming Iran’s ultimate decision-maker.
Iron Fist at Home
Khamenei’s foreign defiance was matched by domestic rigidity, and throughout his rule, he faced repeated waves of unrest that tested the Islamic Republic’s internal cohesion.
Student protests erupted in 1999 and again in 2002, signalling early frustration among younger Iranians. The most serious legitimacy crisis came in 2009, when he endorsed disputed presidential election results, triggering the Green Movement.
Millions poured into the streets, and demonstrators openly questioned the system’s integrity. Khamenei sided firmly with the security establishment, crushing the protests and reinforcing his reputation as an uncompromising authority.
Fresh turmoil emerged in 2019 over fuel price hikes, prompting another nationwide crackdown. But the most sustained and emotionally charged protests of his later years began in autumn 2022, after 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died following her detention by Iran’s “morality police” for allegedly wearing her headscarf improperly. Demonstrations at her funeral quickly spread nationwide, lasting for months and resulting in hundreds of deaths.
Protesters chanted “Death to the dictator,” directly targeting the supreme leader.
In October 2022, Khamenei dismissed the unrest as foreign-instigated, arguing that it was not about hijab rules but about weakening Iran’s independence. “It is about Islamic Iran’s independence, resistance, strength, and power,” he said. “That is what this is about.”
International rights groups repeatedly accused Tehran of serious human rights violations, allegations the government rejected as politically motivated. Arrests, executions, and tight media control became defining features of the state’s response.
Stance on the United States
He accused Washington of seeking regime change, destabilisation and cultural infiltration. Even when backing the 2015 nuclear agreement negotiated under President Hassan Rouhani, his distrust of the US remained explicit.
Tensions deepened when Donald Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal in 2018 and reimposed sanctions. Khamenei sided with hardliners who argued that engagement with Washington was futile.
In January 2025, amid new protests at home and threats of intervention, he vowed Iran would not “yield to the enemy.” As Trump pressed Tehran to negotiate a new nuclear deal, Khamenei responded sharply:
“Who are you to decide whether Iran should have enrichment?” he asked, condemning what he called “rude and arrogant leaders of America.”
His rhetoric hardened further during Trump’s second term, as the US increased pressure on Iran’s oil exports and regional operations.
Axis of Resistance
In 2015, Khamenei cautiously endorsed the nuclear accord that temporarily reduced sanctions and eased Iran’s isolation. But after the U.S. withdrawal, his hostility toward Washington intensified, reinforcing a doctrine of strategic resistance rather than reconciliation.
In recent decades, Khamenei positioned Iran as the ideological and operational hub of what he called the “Axis of Resistance”, a regional alliance designed to counter the United States and Israel and reshape Middle Eastern power balances.
Central to this strategy was the elite Quds Force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, long led by the assassinated commander Qassem Soleimani. Through Soleimani’s military expertise and regional networks, Tehran expanded its strategic depth beyond its borders, embedding influence across fragile states and conflict zones.
“The policies of America in the region are 180 degrees apart from the policies of the Islamic Republic,” Khamenei declared in 2015, framing the confrontation as civilisational rather than tactical.
Iran’s conception of the axis brought together both state and non-state actors. It included the government of Syria under Bashar al-Assad, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, allied factions within Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces, and Yemen’s Houthi movement. Palestinian groups such as Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine were also viewed as key pillars.
Through this network, Khamenei sought to create a land corridor stretching from Tehran to the Mediterranean, a deterrent shield that would raise the cost of any direct attack on Iran.
Final Public Warning
When Khamenei appeared in public in October 2024 for the first time in five years, he delivered a blunt message. From a mosque in Tehran, addressing tens of thousands during Friday prayers, he declared that Israel “won’t last long.”
“We must stand up against the enemy while strengthening our unwavering faith,” he said, projecting defiance even as Iran faced mounting regional pressure and renewed threats from the United States.
Seventeen months later, that long confrontation appears to have culminated in his death. Iranian state television confirmed he was killed in early-morning strikes. The government announced 40 days of national mourning and a seven-day public holiday. Several family members were also reported killed.
Khamenei’s 36-year rule built Iran into a formidable anti-U.S. force while entrenching clerical authority at home. His final years were marked by growing dissent, economic pressure and intensifying confrontation with Washington and Tel Aviv.
His death now leaves the Islamic Republic facing its most uncertain transition since 1989, at a moment of open conflict with the US and Israel, and rising dissatisfaction among younger generations.
The system he shaped endures. But without the man who held it together for more than three decades, its next chapter remains unwritten.
