Ayatollah Khamenei

Sayyid Ali Hosseini Khamenei (born 1939 in Mashhad) is Iran's second Supreme Leader (Rahbar), succeeding Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini upon the latter's death in June 1989. He previously served as President of Iran from 1981 to 1989, having risen through clerical and revolutionary ranks after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. He was a founding member of the Islamic Republic Party and a close ally of Khomeini during the revolution against Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

Under Iran's 1979 constitution (amended 1989), the Supreme Leader sits atop the political system. Khamenei's formal powers include:

• Commander-in-chief of the armed forces, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
• Appointment of the head of the judiciary, half the members of the Guardian Council, and the heads of state broadcasting (IRIB).
• Final authority over foreign policy, the nuclear program, and major domestic decisions.
• Power to confirm the elected president and, in principle, to dismiss him.

Khamenei is selected and theoretically supervised by the Assembly of Experts, an elected clerical body, though the Guardian Council vets candidates for that assembly, creating a closed loop of clerical authority.

His tenure has spanned major events including the post-Iran–Iraq War reconstruction, the 2009 Green Movement protests, the negotiation and 2018 U.S. withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the 2019–2020 fuel protests, the 2020 U.S. killing of IRGC Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani, the 2022–2023 "Woman, Life, Freedom" protests following the death of Mahsa Amini, and the 2024 direct missile and drone exchanges with Israel.

Khamenei has consistently framed the United States as the "Great Satan" and Israel as illegitimate, while maintaining strategic ties with Russia and China. He is subject to U.S. Treasury sanctions imposed in June 2019 under Executive Order 13876.