Barbara Slavin writes:

Many if not most successful revolutions boast inspirational leaders followed by less charismatic figures who serve to entrench the new ideology and system of government. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the second-ever supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, exemplified that latter role.

Khamenei never had the fervent following of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, and he became increasingly unpopular as his rule dragged on. But after succeeding Khomeini in 1989, Khamenei managed to consolidate the country’s unique cleric-led system and build Iran into a powerful adversary of the United States, Israel, and conservative Arab monarchies.

The longest-serving leader in the Middle East until his death, Khamenei survived numerous personal and political challenges. A 1981 bomb blast, detonated inside a tape recorder placed on a table before him, cost Khamenei the use of his right hand and arm, and mass protests repeatedly rattled his regime. Yet Khamenei outmaneuvered other Iranian leaders who were thought to be more adept.

Initially second in influence to Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani—who engineered Khamenei’s elevation to supreme leader after Khomeini’s death and served as Iran’s president from 1989 to 1997—Khamenei eclipsed Rafsanjani by building stronger ties to Iran’s military and security establishment.

Under Khamenei, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) became a dominant force in the economy as well as in foreign policy. The IRGC spearheaded military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere; nurtured militias that advanced Iranian interests; and also served as an instrument of domestic repression, suppressing real and potential enemies.

Khamenei used the vast resources of cleric-led foundations to amass property and dispense largesse. He seeded Iranian institutions with representatives of his own office, much in the way the old Soviet Communist Party used local party secretaries and commissars to extend and maintain power. Mindful of how the Soviet Union collapsed, however, Khamenei was ever on the alert for potential “Ayatollah Mikhail Gorbachevs” who might reform the system from within and open it up to Western influence. All were eventually purged or otherwise marginalized. [Continue reading…]