The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IGRG) is a vital body for supporting the religious regime Getty Images via BBC Iran has chosen its new supreme leader. Mojtaba Khamenei will succeed his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (1939-2026), killed during the coordinated attacks by the United States and Israel against Iran, on Saturday, February 28. The new leader will have absolute power and will become the maximum political and religious reference in the country that his father led for almost four decades, since 1989. Mojtaba Khamenei will control a nation in which religion determines politics and almost all aspects of the lives of its inhabitants. With his election, a new chapter begins, in which the Iranian regime apparently remains intact, but it is still too early to project the scope of this conflict and its consequences. Iran has not always been a theocracy — a regime in which ultimate authority is vested in God and exercised by religious authorities. Its strength is explained by historical and theological elements, but also by political factors. The regime’s ability to sustain the institutional system that maintains it is vital to its survival. But its systematic dedication to avoiding the emergence of potential opponents is equally fundamental, according to several experts. The all-powerful leader Mojtaba Khamenei was chosen as the new supreme leader of Iran, replacing his father, killed in the first attacks on the country, on February 28 Getty Images via BBC Iranian theocracy is unique. The country has a Parliament and president elected by the people, but all power is concentrated in one figure, who is the supreme leader. His power has almost no counterbalance. The supreme leader can veto and exert decisive influence over the country’s main public policies. And, in addition to being the head of state, he is also Iran’s highest political and religious authority. He acts as commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces and all high-ranking military appointments depend on his decision. The supreme leader also appoints the head of the Judiciary and the director of state radio and TV, which maintains a monopoly in the sector in the country. “It’s like having another king, but a religious king”, says journalist Siavash Ardalan, from BBC News Persian. The Council of Guardians and the Assembly of Experts are the two other theocratic pillars of the Iranian system. Who is Mojtaba Khamenei, Iran’s new supreme leader? The Council’s main function is to review parliamentary legislation. All laws passed by Parliament must receive its approval before coming into force. “The Council also plays a filtering role in the electoral processes, evaluating all candidates for the parliamentary and presidential elections and the Assembly of Experts”, explains specialist in Islamic political theology Naser Ghobadzadeh, professor of Politics and International Relations at the American University of Bulgaria. The Assembly of Experts, which had the mission of choosing Mojtaba Khamenei as the new supreme leader, is a body made up of 88 members. Its members are elected by popular vote, but all of them must be men and have the level of mojtahed. Therefore, the Assembly is composed exclusively of clerics. One of its main functions is to choose the highest authority and supervise its performance — a role that, in practice, is not fulfilled. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IGRG) is another key element in protecting the country’s theocratic regime. It was created as a parallel army to defend the 1979 Iranian Revolution and has remained loyal to the regime ever since. The strength of the Iranian theocracy is expressed far beyond its institutional structure. It is also felt on the streets, where women are forced to wear the hijab and, if they do not comply with the rules imposed by the Ayatollah, they can be detained by the morality police. This is what happened to Mahsa Amini (1999-2022), a young Iranian woman of Kurdish origin who died at the hands of that organization at the age of 22, upon being arrested in 2022. Her death sparked mass protests in the country. But how did this regime install itself in Iran? Ali Khamenei led the Iranian theocracy for almost 40 years, since 1989 Getty Images via BBC The path to theocracy The theocratic regime of the ayatollahs emerged in the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Until then, Iran was a monarchy, where the clergy had limited power. The uprising against Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (1919-1980) occurred when different sectors of the country agreed to oppose the regime at the time. The authoritarian modernization driven by the shah over the years was seen by the Islamic world as submission to the West, particularly the United States. And, although originally the revolution was not just religious, the consolidation of the leadership of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (1902-1989) was fundamental to the installation of theocracy in Iran. Khomeini was a charismatic leader and religious scholar. In exile, he promoted the idea that is now at the heart of the Iranian regime: that the clergy should have the power to directly protect political power. This is a radical reinterpretation of the concept of velayat-e faqih (guardianship of the Islamic jurist). This new definition completely broke with the traditional reading of the Shiite world — the branch of Islam that became the official religion of Iran during the Safavid dynasty (1501-1736). Until Khomeini’s reinterpretation, Shiites understood this concept as the necessary influence of clerics on issues of public life, but not as direct participation in government structures. The original doctrine comes from a fundamental belief of Shiite Islam, particularly its Twelver branch. His followers believe that the spiritual successors of the prophet Muhammad (c.570-632) are twelve imams, considered spiritual guides with the authority to interpret Islam. They profess that the twelfth imam did not die, but rather went into occultation. And, someday, he will return to establish the promised order. For centuries, many clerics have argued that as long as this spiritual leader remains hidden, no political figure can assume full legitimacy in his name. But as his concealment continued, the idea that a scholar of Islamic jurisprudence could manage the affairs of the Muslim community took hold. “Shia Islam has never been apolitical,” explains Ghobadzadeh. “What he has historically avoided is the direct takeover of state institutions, that is, the formal structure of government.” The Safavids were one of the most important dynasties in Persian territory. They established Duodeciman Shiism as the official religion Getty Images via BBC With this premise and for centuries, Iran’s political and religious power remained linked, although relatively separate. Until Ruhollah Khomeini took the concept of Islamic jurist tutelage to another level. “With his theory of velayat-e faqih, Khomeini fundamentally broke with this tradition”, highlights Ghobadzadeh. “He argued that the concealment had gone on for a long time and an important part of Islamic law has social and political dimensions,” explains the professor. “For this very reason, the clerics were not only authorized, but obliged to take over the government in the name of the absent imam, to apply these laws.” Faced with the shah’s growing unpopularity, even with the clerical class divided in relation to Khomeini’s reinterpretation, the anti-monarchist climate ended up being conducive to generating support for his idea. After the fall of the monarchy, Iranians approved by referendum the creation of the Islamic Republic based on this interpretation of velayat-e faqih, which was institutionalized in the country’s Constitution, with Khomeini as its first supreme leader. The institutional machine Experts agree that the constitutional supremacy of the regime’s institutions, particularly the broad formal powers granted to the supreme leader, were fundamental to its consolidation. Religion itself and the public image of the clergy’s incorruptibility after the revolution played a decisive role in this sense. “In the years immediately following the revolution, this popularity and credibility translated, through electoral processes, into an almost uncontested dominance of the institutions being formed”, recalls the professor. Ghobadzadeh highlights that the elections for the Assembly of Experts — to draft the Constitution — were symbolic. Although its members were elected in open competition, a high percentage of seats were in the hands of clerics. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, predecessor of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, was instrumental in establishing theocracy in Iran Getty Images via BBC They used this majority skillfully. And when their popularity fell, they didn’t lose their position. “The Constitution that they themselves had written ensured that their institutional dominance would survive even the loss of their public prestige,” according to Ghobadzadeh. “Public opinion has changed, but the architecture of power has not.” “Both Khomeini and Khamenei exploited these prerogatives to the fullest”, continues the professor. “And, on several occasions, they went beyond their broad constitutional powers to ensure the survival of the system and their own control over it.” External factors But there were also factors external to the regime that allowed it to strengthen. Shortly after the revolution, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq (1937-2006) declared war against Iran. Khomeini took advantage of the conflict, which lasted almost eight years, to consolidate the new regime and solidify its power structures. The Iranian regime’s narrative about the war was based on the idea of ”sacred defense.” And, on a political level, it served to silence the opposition. Iraq’s then-president Saddam Hussein decided to invade Iran in September 1980, just a few months after the Iranian Revolution Getty Images via BBC After Khomeini’s death in 1989 and the rise of Ali Khamenei, the system deepened its omnipresence. During Ali Khamenei’s mandate, theocratic institutions underwent extensive expansion. If, under Khomeini, the supreme leader’s office was a relatively small structure, under Khamenei it expanded exponentially. This allowed the leader, after the arrival of the reformist movement within the revolution itself, to dismantle the opposition in different ways. “The regime has marginalized all opposition groups from the beginning,” according to journalist Siavash Ardalan, from BBC News Persian. “The revolution was successful thanks to all groups — nationalists, communists, socialists and social democrats. But when the religious people formed the government, they expelled everyone else.” “There were also divisions among themselves”, continues Ardalan. “Some became hard-line sectors and others became moderate and reformist within the religious class. And these, again, were expelled by the hard-line sectors.” “It was simply a process of radicalization and elimination of all opponents”, concludes the journalist. But the regime’s authoritarianism also showed itself on the streets. And a recent example was the repression of the protests in January this year. Various estimates indicate that, during the protests, thousands of Iranians died who took to the streets to express their discontent with the economic situation experienced by the country of almost 90 million inhabitants. Why is the regime still standing? The institutional structure strengthened by the regime over decades and used as a weapon to perpetuate its power is not the only factor that explains its resistance to collapse. Another reason is the fact that, currently, there is no clear alternative for its replacement. “One of the most important achievements of the Islamic Republic was the systematic suppression of any viable alternative to itself,” explains Ghobadzadeh. “The opposition, especially that operating outside Iran, has not produced a figure, nor a movement that is capable of gathering broad popular support within the country.” ‘The time to return to the streets is near,’ says Reza Pahlavi The only prominent figure to emerge is the son of the former shah, Prince Reza Pahlavi. He gained visibility especially among the Iranian diaspora and some sectors of the country, but it is not yet known for sure whether his figure could garner enough support. In contrast to the regime’s loss of popular support, experts also highlight the existence of a broad group of Iranians with economic interests in its continuity. But the conflict began just over ten days ago and experts agree that it is still too early to conclude whether the system can maintain its current balance in the long term. And the war will be decisive for this.
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‘It’s like having a king, only religious’: what Iran’s theocratic regime is like, where faith dictates everyone’s life
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