Following a week of intense focus on Iran, aimed at dismantling its nuclear ambitions, attention has now shifted to the nation’s enigmatic supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

On Thursday, in the aftermath of an Iranian missile strike on an Israeli hospital, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz issued a statement declaring that “Khamenei will be held accountable for his crimes.” During a visit to one of the impact sites, he further asserted that “a person like that should not exist,” later labeling him “the modern day Hitler,” according to the Times of Israel.

Over his decades of leadership, Khamenei has cultivated an impregnable inner circle both within and beyond Iran. However, with Israel’s recent actions against some of his closest advisors and high-ranking security officials, alongside a significant weakening of his militant Islamic allies across the region, the supreme leader appears increasingly isolated.

“He calls himself a revolutionary, not a diplomat,” explained Dr. Meir Javedanfar, a lecturer in Iran Studies at Reichman University near Tel Aviv, who grew up in Tehran. Javedanfar added that Khamenei perceives himself primarily as a “revolutionary.”

On Wednesday, this spirit of militancy and resolve to maintain power was evident in statements by Khamenei, who asserted that the “Iranian nation will not surrender” and that “war will be met with war, bombing with bombing, and strike with strike,” as reported by local media.

Born in 1939 into a devout yet humble family in Mashad, eastern Iran, Khamenei was a key figure in the pivotal 1979 revolution that overthrew the U.S.-backed shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

A close confidant of Iran’s first supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who spearheaded the revolution and established the Islamic Republic, Khamenei emerged as a trusted aide, instrumental in promoting the new regime’s vision of religiously-dominated governance.

Throughout much of the 1980s, he held the largely ceremonial position of Iran’s president. Subsequently, upon Khomeini’s death in 1989, Khamenei, despite some reports suggesting he was not yet fully qualified, ascended to become the country’s supreme leader.

Since then, Khamenei has worked to solidify his absolute authority, tightening his control over the nation’s political, military, and security apparatus. He has concurrently suppressed dissent and adopted a resolute stance against progressive ideologies, the United States, and Israel.

Lisa Daftari, an expert on Iran and editor-in-chief of The Foreign Desk, informed Fox News Digital, “Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s rule has been characterized by relentless brutality and repression, both within Iran and beyond its borders. Under his direct command, the regime has executed hundreds of prisoners in just the past year, including women, and continues to hold the world record for executions and torture.

“The state police and the infamous ‘morality police,’ all under Khamenei’s command, enforce a severe interpretation of Sharia law, violently suppressing dissent and targeting women and minorities. His apparatus has not only silenced opponents at home through mass arrests, torture, and extrajudicial killings but has also orchestrated assassinations of dissidents abroad and exported terror across the region.”

Daftari concluded, “Khamenei’s regime is responsible for the deaths of countless Iranians, with blood on his hands from both domestic crackdowns and international violence. For almost five decades, Iran has been run as a police state, where fear, surveillance, and systematic human rights abuses are tools of governance and methods of regime survival.”

Khamenei has also heavily invested in the so-called axis of resistance across the region, which includes backing the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthi movement in Yemen, and other militant militias. Many of these allies, along with the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, have faced significant setbacks over the last year and a half under Israeli military pressure.

Domestically, Khamenei’s conservative leadership style has encountered challenges over the years. This included a brief period in 2009 following elections where Khamenei declared victory for the incumbent president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, igniting widespread popular demonstrations, with some protestors demanding Khamenei’s removal.

Mass protests also erupted in the autumn of 2022 after Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old, died while in the custody of the morality police for allegedly wearing her headscarf improperly. The protests were brutally suppressed, with many of those arrested executed by his regime.

Nevertheless, according to the Council For Foreign Relations, Iran’s supreme leader remains “leader for life” under a clerical ruling system that positions him as head of state and grants him extensive control derived from religious authority.

“When he was a young man, he studied the writings of the founders of the Muslim Brotherhood, and always believed in militant Islam,” said Javedanfar, adding that he has also “always been anti-Israel to the point of antisemitism.”

“I think he believes in confronting Israel by every means possible,” he stated, noting that there are no indications Khamenei intends to back down.

“I’m sure many people had warned him that supporting Hamas after October 7, and Hezbollah and other groups could bring disaster, but he obviously, he didn’t listen,” Javedanfar said.

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