Who is Ali Hosseini Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran, and what is the Axis of Resistance

His rule has weathered the eight-year-long Iran-Iraq War, the rise of the 1997 reformist movement initiated by President Mohammad Khatami, the public uprisings of 1999, economic sanctions by the international community, pre-emptive military strikes by Israel and the United States as well as domestic turbulence. In his time, “The Islamic Republic of Iran has demonstrated a strength and political viability few believed possible,” notes Middle East scholar Yvette Hovsepian-Bearce in The Political Ideology of Ayatollah Khamenei: Out of the Mouth of the Supreme Leader of Iran (2015).

But how did a seminary-trained cleric like Khamenei claim and consolidate his position as the Supreme Leader of Iran?

Khamenei’s early life

Khamenei was born in Mashhad, Iran, in 1939 as one of eight children to a poor religious scholar. While studying religion in the city of Qom, aged 23, he became part of Khomeini’s revolutionary movement. Alongside, he interacted with secular opposition intellectuals and enjoyed poetry, music, and reading. A revolutionary, he was influenced by Third Worldism (an ideology that rejects the global capitalist order, and aims to generate unity among countries that do not wish to side with either the US/Russia). During the 1960s and 1970s, Khamenei was arrested six times by the Reza Shah Pahlavi’s secret police, SAVAK, tortured, and spent several years in prison. The revolutionary ideals of azadi, esteghlal, jomhuri-ye Islami (freedom, independence, and Islamic Republic) fuelled his perseverance.

A teenage Khamenei (Source: Wikipedia)

After the overthrow of the Shah’s regime, Khamenei became the deputy minister of defence and supervisor of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). After becoming the second Supreme Leader of Iran, Khamenei maintained his predecessor’s isolationist policy of resisting colonisation, oppression, domination, and ostracisation by foreign powers.

Khamenei’s rise to supremacy

Khamenei did not possess the qualifications needed to be the Leader of the Islamic Republic. According to the constitution, the Leader of the Islamic Republic should be a marja-e taqlid (a religious source of emulation) or a grand ayatollah. However, Khamenei was not an ayatollah; he only held the middle-rank title of hojjat ol-eslam. For this reason, an amendment to the Iranian constitution was made when he took charge as the second Supreme Leader of Iran. The path was not rosy, for Khamenei lacked his predecessor’s charm, popular support, and authority among the revolutionary elite. The situation worsened when, in 1997, under the rule of President Mohammad Khatami, there was a push for reform and a republican regime. “To put it succinctly, Khamenei faced the task of establishing his (revolutionary) authority at a time when revolutionary slogans were beginning to lose appeal,” notes political scientist Kjetil Selvik in Dictators and Autocrats: Securing Power across Global Politics (2021).

Khamenei’s survival strategy involved drawing from the range of powers bestowed on the Supreme Leader — the right to determine the general policies of the Islamic Republic, command the armed forces, declare war and peace, and appoint/dismiss officeholders. His office also had vast economic resources at its disposal.

However, the keystone of his strategy was the combination of anti-imperialism and religious propagation. Like Khomeini, Khamenei has been an opponent of the US and Israel and enforced Islam in every aspect of life. He portrays submission to the Leader as a step towards defending Islam. Not only does he preach this to the officials and masses, but his words “are amplified through a battery of media channels…his websites, and social media accounts,” opines Selvik. He adds, “Propagandists in mosques, the religious seminaries, the judicial system, the Basij force, and the information arms of the IRGC also parrot him.”

Further, Khamenei transformed the education system and financial infrastructure of Iran in ways that massively increased the clergy’s dependence on the state. Emphasising on culture, he says the Islamic Revolution aims to liberate the Muslim society from the oppression of the West, and this “cultural jihad” must never stop.  The cornerstone of authoritarian regimes, in the words of Selvik, is the ability to repress dissent. For this, Khamenei relies on the police, vigilantes, intelligence bodies, judiciary, detention centres, the Courts of the Clergy, and the Islamic Revolutionary Courts.

The Axis of Resistance

“Khamenei instrumentalises outside threats against Iran to discredit the internal opposition against him and enable him to deal with these forces as a security matter,” says Selvik. His core revolutionary ideology, according to Bearce, “includes the supremacy of Islam, the isolationist policy of ‘Neither East, Nor West,’ and enmity with the US and Israel.”

In the Middle East, Khamenei has fostered deeper ties with Bashar al-Assad in Syria and non-state armed groups in Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen. Iran’s relations with the small yet influential Shi’a resistance group in Lebanon, Hezbollah, for instance, were procured by nurturing religious bonds. In Axis of Resistance: Towards an Independent Middle East (2019), Australian academic Tim Anderson notes Iran’s efforts in helping Palestine resist ethnic cleansing, in helping the Lebanese expel Israeli occupation, and its efforts backing both Iraq and Syria in their victories over sectarian terrorism generated by the Gulf monarchies. “Khamenei formed the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution (Shura-ye Aali-ye Enqelab-i Islami) in Iraq and the Muslim Unity Party (Hezb-i Vahdat-i Islami) in Afghanistan,” notes Bearce.

She adds, “His guiding foreign policies entail the liberation of Palestine, the spread of the ideals of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, and the creation of a unified global Islamic power.” In the process, writes historian Phillip Thomas Tucker in The Bloody Hand of Soleimani (2024), the Iranian leadership forged “a dangerous new alliance,” trained and equipped with sophisticated drones and cruise missiles. This coalition, spanning six countries across the Middle East, included Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and anti-American groups in Iraq, Bahrain, and Syria. This ‘Axis of Resistance,’ as per Tucker, is “a clever orchestration of a strategic master plan to [fight] both Israel and America.”

Khamenei has frequently said that Iran will challenge and defeat US hegemony, which has ruled the world since the Second World War. On multiple occasions, the Supreme Leader has asserted that the global community is moving forward, building alliances in different parts of the world. As examples, he cites the European Union, the United Nations, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. “Khamenei, [as a counter initiative], calls for a united Muslim alliance in which Muslim countries, despite doctrinal differences and competing political ambitions, can join forces and create a united Islamic front,” remarks Bearce.