Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

To grasp the Iranian government’s poverty policies and to comprehend the soaring poverty in the country, it is essential to view poverty as a regime security objective. By conducting a critical analysis on 333 texts issued by the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, during 1989-2015, Khamenei’s poverty discourse has been studied through investigating how he defines, describes and frames poverty. The research illuminates Khamenei’s acknowledgement of poverty as a regime security concern, declaring the poor as the regime’s soldiers and wealthier people as unreliable. Khamenei’s poverty discourse encourages policies that force people towards a poverty threshold outlined by him, a line that guarantees basic needs for survival but neglects education and other matters that are significant for human development. Close similarities between how Khamenei defines poverty and how the government determines the official poverty line can also be
found in this research.

This article seeks to delve into the significance of Assad's visit to Iran and explain the potential implications of his meeting with Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on the future of Iran's Syria strategy. It mainly aims to find answers to the following questions: Is Iran seeking to exercise a certain degree of tactical restraint vs. Israel’s actions in Syria or instead is readying for a major military confrontation with Tel Aviv? How do Turkey and Russia tend to interpret the recent escalation in war of words between Iran and Israel? Are we witnessing a major change in Iran's strategy in Syria?

From Ayatollah Khomeini to Ayatollah Khamenei, this book illuminates the governmental structure of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the various governmental directorates, how officials are placed into power and removed, and the matrix of Islamic Theocratic Totalitarian state of Tehran.
"Theocratic Totalitarianism is a view of the world that one’s faith must reign supreme and can be affirmed and held passionately only if all others are negated. It advocates the use of force, violence, or terrorism, because these actions are just a tool – when they believe they are righteous, sacred and all others are wrong. For all of their actions are the divine will of God.
Khomeini shaped his rise to power while in exile from Iran. He carefully created a facade of his true intentions, rarely putting them on public display.  The Islamic Republic of Iran is a revolutionary theocratic totalitarian state formed in 1979 following the overthrow of the last Shah (monarch), Muhammad Reza Pahlavi. Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was the leader of the revolution and then of the Islamic Republic until his death in 1989. It was Ayatollah Khomeini who created the Islamic theology of suicide bombing which has engulfed the world. Iran at one time was one of America’s strongest allies in the Middle East. Tehran was held in high esteem, and maintained friendly relations throughout the region, including Israel. Under the Shah, Iran was the first Muslim Nation to recognize the State of Israel. The Rise of the Islamic Republic of Iran is an account of how one man—Ayatollah Khomeini—changed the face of the Nation of Iran. This is an exploration of the ascent of Khomeini, who refashioned the state of Iran with his radical religious ideology, into a leader of international terrorism.

In the final days of 2017, a wave of protests erupted in Iran, bringing to surface a host of economic, social, and political resentments. Despite the profusion of slogans and demands, the initial trigger is widely believed to have been economic. This article aims to contextualize Iran’s protests by examining the changing dynamics between the state and the poor in the four decades since the country’s 1979 revolution. A case is made that while in the first decade after the revolution the poor became the primary social base of the post-revolutionary state, the (neo-liberal) shift in economic policies since the early 1990s has cultivated new dynamics in which the lower economic strata are increasingly disenchanted with and disenfranchised from the state.

What is Ayatollah Khamenei's strategic thinking, and how does it shape and influence Iran's foreign policy, military and national security strategy? This article studies the theoretical and conceptual dimensions of Ayatollah Khamenei's foreign policy and strategic thinking, including his aims and principles, approaches, behaviors, decisions, and incentives, as the Islamic Republic of Iran's commander-in-chief of armed forces. The authors strive to explain how the political and military doctrine of Iran's Supreme Leader is designed to increase the country's relative security. They argue that Iran's leader tries to neutralize challenges caused by new changes that have occurred in Iran's immediate security sphere through activating patterns related to active deterrence. Thus, for him, sufficient military power can only be obtained by maximizing security. This way of thinking can best be explained by defensive realism theory. In this context, four dimensions of this theory i.e., balance of power, balance of threat, interconnected security, and offense-defense approach are discussed in the thoughts of Iran's leader. The authors also hold that the ethical aspect of Ayatollah Khamenei's strategic thinking, based on the principles of Islamic international relations, gives realism in the Middle East a critical approach.

Keywords: Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran’s National Security, Defensive Realism, Relative Security, Balance of Power, Offense-Defense Approach

Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, a senior nuclear scientist of the Islamic Republic, the father of Iran’s atomic bomb, and, according to Foreign Policy, one of the world’s 500 most powerful people, was recently assassinated in an armed attack on the outskirts of Tehran. After his assassination, Iranian and international media reported that Fakhrizadeh was one of the high-ranking commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and a prominent professor and researcher at Imam Hussein University. Thus, Fakhrizadeh’s assassination intensified speculation about Imam Hussein University, raising questions such as: What is the focus of the university? What activities does it undertake? What kind of research does it perform? In this article I will try to answer these questions.

In the context of the Iran-West nuclear talks, a peculiar issue that is occasionally conjured up by the Islamic Republic officials in order to demonstrate the “peaceful” nature of the I.R. nuclear activities is the so-called “Nuclear Fatwa” by the Islamic Republic’s incumbent Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The West assumes that if the Islamist regime of Iran is granted some leeway, then it will stop its aggression towards other nations. But the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ leap for absolute power in Iran and its belligerent empire-building in the Middle East show otherwise.

Telah lama publik di Indonesia menyaksikan pemberitaan internasional tentang perseteruan sengit antara Amerika Serikat, Negara Adidaya, melawan negeri para mullah yang kesohor dengan proyek pengembangan nuklirnya, Iran. Adu narasi dari kedua negara ataupun opini-opini yang mendukung masing-masing pihak ialah hal lumrah sejak beberapa dekade.Berakhirnya tahun 2019 lalu telah menandai bahwa telah lewat empat dasawarsa / 40 tahun ketegangan antara Amerika Serikat “Sang Adidaya” dengan Iran “Sang Penantang.” Apakah kematian Soleimani akan menjadi penanda baru bagi pertikaian kedua negara dengan pola yang lebih terang-terangan dengan kontak senjata langsung, yang kemudian melibatkan sejumlah negara sekutu masing-masing dan menjerumuskan dunia pada jilid ketiga perang dunia (seperti yang dikhawatirkan) ?

Iran has been in the forefront of international interest during the last years due to its nuclear program and strategic position for the Middle Eastern affairs. However, Iran’s internal political arena is equally turbulent to its international relations. After the 2009 elections and the crush of the Green Movement a new power struggle has emerged within the Iranian regime. President Ahmadinejad’s attempt to create a loyal elite around him was met with a fierce response from Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s side which stripped him off his power, attacked his associates and might even cancel the position of president itself. The outcome of this “internal war” is crucial for both regional and global politics.

The election of Ebrahim Raisi will likely herald a change in the style of Iranian politics but not its substance. The consummate insider, more than anything else Raisi’s election signals a continuation of the Islamic Republic’s core ideals. Neither the overall nature of Iranian politics nor the policy objectives of the Islamic Republic are likely to change in the near future. Moreover, Raisi’s election portends a strengthening of Khamenei’s legacy for Iran. The new president comes to office amid a wave of voter apathy and general disenchantment with the political system. Unless conditions improve, especially in the economy and in Iran’s foreign relations, Raisi, and Khamenei along with him, will find himself governing over a population that is not just detached from the political process but in fact resents, and could perhaps even resist, those in power.

The outcome of the upcoming Presidential election in Iran has been sealed by the Guardian Council’s decision to exclude candidates at will and to favor the Supreme Leader’s trustees. The current appointed body has prevented Rafsanjani and Mashaei, along with several other hundreds, from running for the seat, while the Green Movement has been prosecuted. But even though none of the remaining eight candidates can be labeled as pure reformers or as liberals, they do have different approaches on important matters that have significant impact on the country and the region, such as their stances on the nuclear program and on the economy.

Barack Obama is rushing to the United Nations to get the six Security Council resolutions against Iran (2006-2010), four of which contain sanctions provisions, rescinded before Congress reviews the Iran deal. Why? He is rushing to the UN because the July 14 Iran-deal violates those UN resolutions. It allows Tehran to do any number of things that have been expressly forbidden. As the administration proceeds with the Congressional review, the opponents could justifiably argue that the deal was in violation of a whole spate of UN resolutions. This in addition to the IAEA’s failure, since 2003, to certify that Iran has been in compliance with any part of any of them...

This article explains the role that Iranian Supreme Leaders [vali-ye faqihs] have played in developing policies and regulations to supervise book publishing in Iran since 1979 (the Islamic Revolution). I have studied all the laws, bylaws and other regulations related to book publishing (1979-2021) to describe Leaders opinions on culture and freedom of expression, their decrees and fatwas related to book publishing, their role in defining the cultural policy of the country and establishing the Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution (the SCCR), the organization that passes most of the regulations concerning supervision of cultural activities including the activities of publishers, print houses and other related centers as well as the contents of books. This article shows how the legal system of Iran, with the authority of Vail-ye Faqihs, during the last four decades, has been gradually elaborated to a significant extent and has been quite efficient in defining and enforcing cultural policy and regulations and taking control of cultural activities including contents of books.