EP58: Ali Khamenei

Ali Khamenei has been the Supreme Leader of Iran since 1989, and previously served as President in the 1980s. This podcast is released at what appears to be a moment of mounting crisis for the Islamic regime, with protests across the country going into their seventh consecutive week. 

Domestically, Khamenei's time as leader has been characterised on the one hand by consolidation of the regime after the Iran-Iraq War, but also by passionate disagreements in civil society over how puritanical Iranian religious doctrine should be. The presidency has changed hands from stalwart conservatives like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to reformer Hassan Rouhani, and back again in 2021 to hardliner Ebrahim Raisi. 

With each change has come a greater fracturing of Iranian society, and a slow drip-drip of protests. Khamenei, at 83, is still at the helm, and has recently spoken out against the protests and reaffirmed his support for President Raisi. The question of these protests is: will they be different to former demonstrations, lasting the course, and perhaps precipitating a change of regime? I generally believe that those who have knowledge don’t predict, and those who predict have no knowledge, but it’s nonetheless interesting to speculate on Iran’s future. 

Joining me to discuss Khamenei and Iran is Borzou Daragahi (@borzou), an Iranian-American journalist who works as an international correspondent for the Independent. Borzou is a member of Iran’s Gen Xers, who came of age in the Ayatollah’s tumultuous first decade in power. His comparisons of his generation and the current generation, who are much less squeamish about protesting against the regime, were great to listen to.