Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (19 April 1939 – 28 February 2026) was Iran’s Supreme Leader for 36 years and one of the most consequential figures in the Islamic Republic after its founder, Ruhollah Khomeini. His leadership shaped Iran’s institutions, regional posture and domestic politics, while deepening divisions at home and abroad.
Born into a clerical family in the holy city of Mashhad, Khamenei received traditional Shia religious training and became an activist in the movement around Khomeini. He embraced the doctrine of velayat-e-faqih—the idea that senior Islamic jurists should exercise political guardianship—and spent years in underground opposition to Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, enduring arrests and imprisonment that burnished his revolutionary credentials.
After the 1979 revolution he rose through the new regime. He survived a 1981 assassination attempt that left his right arm paralysed and was elected president that same year. As president from 1981 to 1989 he governed during the closing stages of the Iran–Iraq war, building a reputation for administrative competence even though he did not possess the senior clerical rank of Iran’s religious elite.
Khomeini’s death in 1989 opened the way for Khamenei’s elevation to Supreme Leader by the Assembly of Experts—a choice widely viewed at the time as a compromise to maintain revolutionary continuity. Once in office he gradually consolidated authority, placing the armed forces, judiciary, intelligence services and foreign policy firmly under the Supreme Leader’s control and strengthening institutions such as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Khamenei’s foreign policy emphasized security and resistance to the United States and Israel, centring disputes over Iran’s nuclear programme and building influence across the region through state-backed militias and allied groups in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen. Domestically, his tenure saw recurring waves of protest—most notably the 2009 Green Movement—and periodic unrest linked to economic strain. These challenges were frequently met with firm crackdowns that drew international criticism over human rights and political freedoms.
At the same time, his government maintained pragmatic relationships with some states, including India, where long-standing cultural and strategic ties—such as cooperation around the Chabahar port—persisted despite sanctions. Supporters praised Khamenei as a defender of Iran’s sovereignty and a bulwark against Western pressure; critics accused him of entrenching authoritarian clerical rule and militarizing the republic’s regional role.
Khamenei’s death in US–Israeli strikes on 28 February 2026 brought to an end a defining era of the Islamic Republic. His passing leaves Iran confronting its most uncertain succession since 1979 and raises fundamental questions about the future shape of the state he helped construct.
