Ayatollah Khamenei wants to leave a legacy — but it may not be the one he wants

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is the head of state of Iran and commander in chief of its armed forces. After Israel’s alleged strike on a building in an Iranian diplomatic compound in Damascus, which constitutes as an attack on Iranian soil, Khamenei declared, “The evil Zionist regime will be punished at the hands of our brave men. We will make them regret this crime.” 

On April 13, Iran launched 300 projectiles at Israel, including around 170 drones and over 120 ballistic missiles. As most commentators expected, 99 percent of the missiles were intercepted. Sadly, the one casualty appears to be an injured seven-year-old Arab girl.    

America has warned Israel not to respond immediately. Escalation is what Khamenei wants, despite his protestations otherwise. The hard-line mullahs pray for a conflagration that could trigger the coming of Imam Zaman, a messianic leader who will inaugurate the end of days.

Ayatollah Khamenei is 84 years old and has frequently battled cancer. Before he dies, he wants to achieve a legacy: the dominance of the Iranian Shia state over the Middle East, and the expulsion of Israel — and ultimately America — from the region. He prefers the hard-line Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri to succeed him, but he cannot publicly name a successor-designate without creating a rival and bringing about a dual power dynamic undermining his own authority.

Political candidates and all highly paid government jobs in Iran are given to close supporters of the Ayatollah Khamenei, a strict fundamentalist. He is backed up by a powerful militia called the Revolutionary Guards, the devout Assembly of Experts, the religious judiciary (Shia canon law specialists), the Guidance Patrol (morality police) and a vast bureaucracy — all paid for by billions of dollars of uranium and oil revenue. 

So, what is his likely legacy?

One possibility is that the mullahs will be overthrown and imprisoned by a military coup from within the Revolutionary Guards. Millions of Iranians would support this. However, military rule, led by someone like Guards General Hossein Salami, is just swapping one dictatorship for another. In many ways it will just enshrine the status quo, but without the mullahs. The Guards directly, and indirectly, control billions of dollars of Iranian contracts in the fields of construction, electricity supply, engineering, telecommunications, and the media.

The second possibility is a state-wide civil war, in which Khamenei and his followers are violently removed, resulting a fractured state like neighboring Iraq. In this scenario, the Iranian army (the Artesh) would fight the Revolutionary Guards; while the Artesh are numerically larger, the Guards are better equipped. Also, it might see the re-emergence of factional blocs like the Basij-style militias, and marginal groups such as ISIS, the Kurds, and the Sunni Jaish al-Adl (Army of Justice).

Nobody in Iran, or in the West, wants this destabilizing scenario.

Finally, and more likely, Ayatollah Khamenei will die peacefully, and the mullahs, and their loyal bureaucracy, will retain control. Most Iranians, young and old, are patriotic, support Palestine, and believe in their Twelver Shiʿah version of Islam. The two scenarios above rightly frighten them. They would hope that Khamenei’s successors adopt a more liberal philosophy.

Iran may continue to fund their proxies — the Houthis, Hezbollah and Hamas — to attack Israel and America, but there is general Iranian discontent with their effectiveness. There is also a question of their loyalty to Iran if a new regime does not fund them. Hezbollah is corrupt and Iran is not popular in Lebanon. The Houthis and the Iranians embrace different denominations of Shiite Islam and consider each other heretics. Furthermore, Hamas are mainly Sunni Muslims and do not want to be controlled by Shia.   

An undercurrent of dissatisfaction with the mullahs inside Iran will remain, regardless the fate of Khamenei.

In a country that is mineral and oil rich, many young people are unemployed. The jobs that are available go to the theocracy that support Khamenei. Outside that theocracy, taxi driving is considered a reasonable low-paying job; it is not surprising that many recent political uprisings opposing the Iranian elite rule have been backed by taxi drivers. They particularly feel the pain of inflation, aggravated by international sanctions, and the gradual clawback of state fuel subsidies. In the big cities, many taxi drivers refuse to drive the mullahs. 

Large uprisings and protests in 2009, 2019 and 2022 were instigated and supported by women, and the disenfranchised. The response by Khamenei and his theocracy has been swift and violent. Thousands have been imprisoned, and hundreds killed. In 2022 to 2023, 18,500 people, including at least 665 students, were arrested. Iran’s judiciary sentenced a number of these protesters to death on the charge of “war against God,” and at least two of them were executed.

Whatever happens in the near future, Ali Khamenei’s legacy within and outside Iran is a house of cards. America would be wise to let it collapse on its own.

Patrick Drennan is a journalist based in New Zealand, with a degree in American history and economics.