CAIRO (AP) — He is the grandson of an influential Shiite cleric, born in Qom — the heart of religious studies in Iran — and raised in a traditional family that embraced the theocracy. But by his late 20s, he had stopped praying and given up on clerical rule. Now, he can barely discuss politics or religion with his siblings and father.
The tech worker, now in his mid-30s, says Iranian society is deeply divided, even among opponents of the Islamic Republic,
and he blames one man — Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The supreme leader who ruled Iran for over three decades will be laid to rest Thursday after being killed at the start of the war.
Processions of his coffin in Tehran and other cities brought out gigantic crowds of supporters in a show of strength by the hard-liners at the core of the Islamic Republic, who lionized him as a defender of clerical rule who had stood up to the West and Israel.
But underneath run deep veins of discontent that have grown over decades of bloody repression, international sanctions and economic mismanagement, and have widened since authorities killed thousands of anti-government protesters in January.
“A gap has opened up in homes across the country that is really remarkable,” said the tech worker by phone from Tehran, where he now lives. Like others interviewed by The Associated Press to discuss Khamenei’s rule, he spoke on condition of anonymity out of security fears.
Khamenei's death, in Israeli strikes on Feb. 28, crowned his legacy in the eyes of Iran’s rulers and his supporters, who consider him a martyr. Echoing the slogans of ultra-hardliners who oppose talks with the U.S., some who turned out for the funeral called for U.S. President Donald Trump to be killed in revenge.
“Our goal is to prove to the world that we will not submit to oppression and tyranny, and that we will avenge the blood of our leader,” said Hossein Akbari, a 60-year-old mourner in Tehran.
Khamenei took the reins in 1989 after the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the charismatic ideologue who had led the overthrow of the U.S.-allied shah a decade earlier and inspired a mass following.
Under the banner of resisting the West, Khamenei defied sanctions to build up the country’s nuclear program, its arsenal of missiles and its network of militant allies across the region.
Within Iran, he entrenched hard-line clerical rule by largely neutralizing the reform movement. He gave the Revolutionary Guard immense military, political and economic power. As younger Iranians sought liberalization, he tried to maintain strict control over people’s personal lives and dress codes.
A critical turning point came in 2009 with the repression of protests sparked by vote-rigging allegations in that year's presidential elections. Dozens were killed in the first major crushing of a large protest movement.
It generated widespread hopelessness, according to an Iranian activist and former political prisoner who writes for a reformist-leaning magazine in Tehran.
A senior aide to Iran’s reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian acknowledged last month that Iran was “severely polarized” between hard-core supporters of the Islamic Republic and those who want its downfall. But Ali Rabiei said there was a large part of society between the “two poles” that the government could lean on to deliver change within the system. His remarks were carried by the state news agency IRNA.
There is no reliable polling in Iran, but elections offer a glimpse of public opinion.
Turnout in Iran's last presidential elections dropped to some of the lowest levels ever, seen as a sign that millions hoping for change saw no use in voting. Still, the hard-line candidate garnered 13.5 million votes, while Pezeshkian, the reformist, received 16.3 million.
Repeated eruptions of protests since 2009 were met with bloody crackdowns. January's was the deadliest, when security forces killed thousands to crush nationwide demonstrations that started over economic woes and then snowballed into calls for Khamenei's overthrow.
The sister of a protester who was shot to death on Jan. 9 in Tehran summarized Khamenei’s legacy in one word: injustice.
For working-class families, Iran’s plunging economy has only worsened since the war. “Workers can barely afford to buy bread, everything is so expensive,” she said.
“Since my sister died, mentally, financially, our life has fallen apart. All we do is look at photos and videos of my sister and cry. What do we have left?” she said from her home in eastern Iran.
A quiet form of dissent appeared over the past month as Iranians marked the holy period of Ashoura, commemorated with funeral-style marches honoring a martyred 7th-century Shiite saint. Videos posted on social media have shown some Iranians joining the processions with photos of family members killed in the January crackdown.
One legacy of Khamenei is the Islamic Republic's ability to survive his death and the massive U.S.-Israeli assault. The leadership emerged from the war with an interim deal with the U.S. that won it some immediate gains. The deal promises an even greater windfall — a lifting of sanctions — if Iran and the U.S. reach a final nuclear agreement, though that is uncertain.
“It’s a victory for the Islamic Republic,” a 35-year-old woman who joined the January protests said of the deal. But “for Iran’s people, until we see the results, we won’t know if it is.”
She worries about the chasm in Iranian society and rifts among opponents of the theocracy, some of whom hope for its quick overthrow while others see the potential for gradual change.
“The space for dialogue is very closed, and I don’t mean only the government, I mean the people,” she said.
After losing his job at a tech company, a 33-year-old Tehran resident who also joined the January protests said his main concern was the wrecked economy, where unemployment and prices have surged. Many of his friends are now jobless, and his wife's employer slashed salaries.
“All of us, frankly, are just trying to stay alive and all of our struggle is taken up with meeting basic needs like rent and food,” he said.
Rebin Rahmani, a Kurdish activist once imprisoned in Iran and now living in Paris, said the theocracy under Khamenei lacked any answer to multiplying political and economic problems — except further repression.
“Its insistence on iron-fisted, security-driven approaches will only trigger further unrest,” said Rahmani, a director at the Kurdish Human Rights Network. Protests are “reigniting every few years with renewed force.”
Pezeshkian and other pragmatists within the system want to use U.S. talks to try to get sanctions lifted and rebuild the economy. For now, they appear to have the backing of Khamenei's son and successor, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, who is still in hiding but lent his tentative support to talks in a written statement.
Peacetime might prove the real test of the elder Khamenei’s legacy, said Ali Vaez, Iran director at the International Crisis Group, as rival factions vie to define the future of the Islamic Republic.
“Wartime gave the system a degree of cohesion under shared duress. But the governance challenges remain just as stark.”
