Death Comes to the Dictator

OBITUARY: Ayatollah Ali Khamenei brought his country and regime to ruin.  
  
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| | **OBITUARY**  
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Death Comes to the Dictator  
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 _By  **Barbara Slavin**, a distinguished fellow at the Stimson Center._  
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| |  Many if not most successful revolutions boast inspirational leaders followed by less charismatic figures who serve to entrench the new ideology and system of government. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the second-ever supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, exemplified that latter role. Khamenei never had the fervent following of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, and he became increasingly unpopular as his rule dragged on. But after succeeding Khomeini in 1989, Khamenei managed to consolidate the country’s unique cleric-led system and build Iran into a powerful adversary of the United States, Israel, and conservative Arab monarchies. The longest-serving leader in the Middle East until his death, Khamenei survived numerous personal and political challenges. A 1981 bomb blast, detonated inside a tape recorder placed on a table before him, cost Khamenei the use of his right hand and arm, and mass protests repeatedly rattled his regime. Yet Khamenei outmaneuvered other Iranian leaders who were thought to be more adept. Initially second in influence to Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani—who engineered Khamenei’s elevation to supreme leader after Khomeini’s death and served as Iran’s president from 1989 to 1997—Khamenei eclipsed Rafsanjani by building stronger ties to Iran’s military and security establishment. Under Khamenei, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) became a dominant force in the economy as well as in foreign policy. The IRGC spearheaded military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere; nurtured militias that advanced Iranian interests; and also served as an instrument of domestic repression, suppressing real and potential enemies. Khamenei used the vast resources of cleric-led foundations to amass property and dispense largesse. He seeded Iranian institutions with representatives of his own office, much in the way the old Soviet Communist Party used local party secretaries and commissars to extend and maintain power. Mindful of how the Soviet Union collapsed, however, Khamenei was ever on the alert for potential “Ayatollah Mikhail Gorbachevs” who might reform the system from within and open it up to Western influence. All were eventually purged or otherwise marginalized.  In the final year of his life, Khamenei faced a series of escalating challenges to his rule, from U.S. and Israeli air campaigns in June 2025 to sustained nationwide protests in January 2026. He responded with unrelenting violence, unleashing hundreds of missiles at Israel in an attempt to restore deterrence and killing tens of thousands of his own citizens. And as the threat of a new war intensified, he refused to meet U.S. demands to abandon the country’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs. Khamenei’s death, from an airstrike at age 86, revealed the limits of his foreign policy and left the future of his regime in grave doubt...   
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| | **Iran Politics & Policy News**  
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|  **Iran Is Built to Withstand the Ayatollah's Assassination **The U.S. and Israeli militaries are targeting Iran’s leaders—but that may only strengthen the state.  
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_By Ali Hashem_  
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|  **Trump Is Betraying His Base By Waging War on Iran **Voters were promised America First, not Bush-era interventions.  
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_By Emma Ashford_  
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|  **Oil Markets Brace for Disruption After U.S.-Israel Strikes on Iran **The worries include strikes against regional oil production as well as crude flows from the Persian Gulf.   
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_By Keith Johnson_  
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**Iran Is Built to Withstand the Ayatollah's Assassination   
**The U.S. and Israeli militaries are targeting Iran’s leaders—but that may only strengthen the state.  
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_By Ali Hashem_  
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| |  **Trump Is Betraying His Base By Waging War on Iran  
**Voters were promised America First, not Bush-era interventions.  
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_By Emma Ashford_  
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| | **Oil Markets Brace for Disruption After U.S.-Israel Strikes on Iran  
**The worries include strikes against regional oil production as well as crude flows from the Persian Gulf.   
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_By Keith Johnson_  
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#  Iran After the Attacks  
  
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What goals were the U.S. and Israel trying to achieve, and how feasible are they? How is Tehran likely to game out the next few days and weeks? Join FP Live for a timely discussion with **Vali Nasr**.  
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