Word: khomeini
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...hypermorality isn't exactly a return to the days of the Ayatullah Khomeini. Today the tactics are subtler than in the past, when morality police were dispatched onto the streets of Tehran to harass youth. Instead, regular Iranians are being cowed into the role of enforcer...
...Hizballah's key patrons, it's difficult to describe Iran as neutral in the unfolding conflict. Since the Ayatollah Khomeini launched Hizballah in the early eighties to spread Shia revolution, Western officials say Iran has kept contingents of Revolutionary Guards in Lebanon, the most strategic area outside its own borders where Tehran can exercise influence. Western diplomatic estimates of how many are there and where exactly they are vary, but several hundred Revolutionary Guards are believed to operate in the Hizballah-controlled Beqaa Valley, providing operational training to the movement's guerilla forces. For its part, Iran insists...
...draw the country into war with its longtime adversary, the U.S. But for all the bluster, Ahmadinejad's powers are constrained. The legal structure of the Islamic Republic places ultimate political authority in Khamenei, 66, who became Iran's religious leader in 1989 after the death of Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini. Because the Iranian Constitution grants the Supreme Leader veto power over the President's decisions, it is Khamenei who has the final say in high matters of state. As a result, the low-profile cleric--he shuns interviews with journalists--is the figure who will probably determine whether the nuclear...
...what does Khamenei want? In Tehran, speculation about the cleric's ambitions and the future of his partnership with Ahmadinejad is a parlor game of government insiders. Though Khomeini's doctrine of velayet-e faqih grants Khamenei divine right to rule, Khamenei is a breed apart from most Shi'ite mullahs, who still abide by premodern strictures. "He wears a watch," says an intimate, to illustrate how Khamenei differs from his fellow clerics. He hikes in jeans in Tehran's Alborz Mountains and plays the tar, a traditional Iranian stringed instrument. On religious issues, Khamenei is a conservative...
What he lacks is Khomeini's populist charisma, which suggests why he has embraced Ahmadinejad's role of fire-breathing agitator. The two meet one evening a week, and intimates of Khamenei describe their interactions as those of a disciple with his leader. Khamenei praises the President regularly in his speeches and offers criticism in private. Ahmadinejad, for his part, has suppressed dissent and marginalized political opponents whom Khamenei considers a threat. Officials and outside analysts say Khamenei has never felt so in control. "Khamenei feels the President shares his values, so he sees the government as stronger and more...