Post #5250

🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩 Khamenei amassed control of bonyads (charitable foundations) worth tens of billions of US dollars, and under his rule Iran was marred by systemic corruption, mismanagement and rising repression. At home there was deeply felt anger and resentment towards him and the clerical establishment. Hiis position was strengthened by re-establishing ties with Saudi Arabia, and other Arab neighbours in the Persian Gulf, and joining the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and Brics intergovernmental groups. He gained support from China through a 25-year cooperation deal and from Russia through a defence and cooperation treaty that armed Moscow with drones and reportedly ballistic missiles to use in its Ukraine war. Still, Israel’s normalisation with some Arab states through the Abraham accords appeared threatening to the resistance axis, and it is no surprise that Khamenei backed the 7 October attack on Israel. Iran’s tit-for-tat strikes with Israel and the assassinations of Hamas leadership in Tehran and the Hezbollah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah prompted speculation that Khamenei would be next. From 1958 to 1964, Khamenei did his religious studies at the Hojjatie school at the seminary in Qom, the centre of Islam in Iran, where he came under the tutelage of Khomeini and in 1962 joined the clerical movement against the shah. Khamenei’s worldview was shaped by the events of his youth, including the MI6-backed CIA coup d’etat against the prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953. His pro-Palestine leanings were largely prompted by Khamenei’s readings of the Muslim Brotherhood member Sayyid Qutb, which he had translated to Persian. The notion of gharbzadegi (“westoxification”), espoused by Jalal Al-e-Ahmad, shaped his ideas of the west and its imperialist hold over Iran. Naturally, Khamenei and those likeminded clerics at the time saw Islam as a “cultural and ideological weapon” against it. In 1981, Khamenei survived an assassination attempt that paralysed his right hand. He said: “I won’t need the hand. It would suffice if my brain and tongue work.” He served as president of the Islamic Republic for two terms (1981-89). In 1987 he made his only trip to the US, to address the UN general assembly. Months before Khomeini’s death from a heart attack in 1989, Khamenei reportedly said: “I’m not qualified to be supreme leader. It’s not the proper place for me.” When Khomeini died, the former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani pushed the uncharismatic, underqualified and reluctant Khamenei – not at that point having achieved the senior clerical rank of ayatollah – forward. #khamenei#death#hezbollah#iran#attack#israel#trump 📱American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events 🇺🇸