Ali Khamenei

What to know about Iran's supreme leader NPR's Steve Inskeep profiles Iran's supreme leader, who is deciding on his next steps after a ceasefire with Israel. In this photo released by the official website of the office of the Iranian supreme leader, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks to a group of people and officials in Tehran, Iran, Friday, March 21, 2025. Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/ Via AP hide caption The next phase of the confrontation with Iran depends in part on Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Khamenei, 86, is not the only voice in Iran's national security establishment, but is thought to have the final word. Over the years, I have occasionally visited Iran for NPR, and had some opportunity to learn about Khamenei. Once I was allowed into a polling place to watch him vote. He dropped the ballot in a box with his left hand — his right hand having been immobilized by a long-ago assassination attempt — and turned to the assembled press corps to briefly curse the United States. Opposition to America and Israel are foundational ideas of his government. Murals across Iran feature his seemingly benevolent white-bearded face. Once I saw his words on one of those murals, which translated as: "We will not get along with America for one single second." Some key facts about him follow, based on past reporting on his very long career, along with fresh analysis from this week. Khamenei is only the second supreme leader since Iran's Islamic revolution in 1979. He succeeded the similarly-named but unrelated Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who had been the leading figure in the overthrow of Iran's last king, or Shah. Under the constitution framed by his predecessor, Khamenei is to be the supreme guide for a government with many divisions of power. There is an elected president and parliament, as well as a court system and central bank. There is a national security council, and an "Assembly of Experts," clerics who choose each supreme leader. There is an army, but also a separate Revolutionary Guard Corps and competing intelligence services. These institutions provide checks and balances in a way that would almost seem to draw on American traditions of government — with the profound difference that all institutions in Iran are ultimately subordinate to just one power, Khamenei's. Khamenei grew up in the Shiite Muslim holy city of Mashhad, where his four-room childhood home has been preserved. When I visited, people were praying there. His father was an ayatollah, a religious figure with an exalted title and limited income. Khamenei attended theological school. Though he did not have a distinguished clerical career, he became a protege of Khomeini, the revolutionary leader. He was elected president, then Khomeini's successor. Karim Sadjadpour, a longtime Iran scholar, has long observed that Khamenei has far more control of the state than a U.S. president: Barbara Slavin, who studies Iran at the Stimson Center in Washington, adds an important nuance: Iran does have politics and competing points of view, which force Khamenei to rule by "consensus" of the military, political and clerical leaders on his national security council. That said, he controls both militias and intelligence agencies to help enforce his will. He also has tremendous influence in the business world through state-controlled charitable foundations, which have captured some of Iran's oil wealth. "They're one of the biggest conglomerates in the world," said the late Sadegh Samii, who spoke for an NPR profile of Khamenei in 2009. Samii was a Tehran businessman who said the supreme leader of the oil-rich republic directs "beverages, banks, steelmakers, automakers, agriculture, lots of things." Over time, he has also resisted surrendering Iran's uranium enrichment programs, even while denying accusations that Iran was seeking a weapon. Barbara Slavin notes that, at 86, he has taken the step of naming three possible successors. The choice eventually will