John Bickley (3:07)

Joining us now is Benham Ben Talablu, the senior director of the Iran program at the foundation for Defense of Democracies. Benham, good to see you again. Thanks for coming on.

Benham Ben Talablu (3:15)

Pleasure. Always good to be back with you guys. Thank you.

John Bickley (3:18)

So Ayatollah Khamenei ruled for 36 years in Iran. He was a power player actually, since the Islamic Revolution in 79. So he's been there from the beginning. What is the reaction on the ground there to his death?

Benham Ben Talablu (3:33)

Well, largely the reaction is felicitation and jubilation. You know, Iran just went through its biggest nationwide anti regime uprising in the month of January with 30 to 40,000 killed just in a matter of days that was coterminous with one of the nation's largest Internet blackouts. And among one of the many chants that we've heard was Death to Khamenei. And the Iranian population is quite literally no longer filtering itself when it comes to its views, values and intentions here. They rightly hold the supreme leader supremely accountable for the state that their country has been in.

Host/Announcer (4:09)

Now for people who aren't familiar with Khomeini, how did he come into power 36 years ago?

Benham Ben Talablu (4:15)

Well, it was quite a bit of musical chairs at the top. Khamenei occupied the position of supreme leader, or more aptly put, guardianship of the jurisprudent. And that religious title is a manufactured title that, you know, Iranian officials said only senior clergy, only ayatollahs, basically the equivalent of a religious PhD could have. But religiously, Khamenei has a religious version of an MA He's a Hojatul Islam. So he was kind of promoted overnight and pushed forward in the elite infighting after the death of the founding father of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Khomeini. I know that the K's can get confusing. I'm a first generation Iranian American myself, speak fluent Persian, but at the same time Khamenei and Khomeini can be sometimes confusing. I've made this slip up before, but trust me, we know who they are here. After the death of Khomeini, Khomeini was pushed forward by some of Iran's political elite to thinking that he would be a pliant cleric. But in his three and a half decades in power, Khamenei has really had really consolidated the security services and brought in the military, to politics, to society and to the economy and relied on them for his three and a half decades of terror.

John Bickley (5:26)

Yeah, I wanted to ask you specifically about that. His very strict, rigid regime and his method of rule. There was a fundamentalist Islamic aspect to it, of course. What are some of the defining characteristics of his reign?

Benham Ben Talablu (5:40)

To be brutally honest, if Khamenei had died on October 6, 2023, I think you really could have made the case that this individual would have been among one of the most successful anti American and anti Israeli autocrats of the modern Muslim world. Ultimately, Khamenei's legacy was about preserving, protecting and defending the Islamic Republic and the Islamic revolution. Abroad. He kept that government's disposition focused on exporting the revolution, on exporting terrorism, of seeking to pursue destabilizing weapons, including missiles and weapons of mass destruction, and continuing a foreign policy of death to America and death to Israel. Even at the peak of American military superiority and unipolarity, even when it came near its borders at home, it was a reign of fear, a reign of terror. He basically institutionalized the Islamic Republic after it was founded. He had strict dress codes that were always there from the get go but also continued to be enforced. And Khamenei's style basically deflected blame from him for the mass repression and the institutionalization of Islamism. But ultimately the Iranian population rightly held him accountable. So Khamenei's reign at home was a reign that did not budge, did not offer representative government and really continued to push for the institutionalization of their own perverse brand of 12 er, Shiism.

John Bickley (7:07)

One follow up to that, particularly the treatment of women under his regime. There's been a lot of reports about the specific laws, marriage laws as it applies to women, women in the workforce, et cetera. What was it like for women under his reign?

Benham Ben Talablu (7:22)

Well, unfortunately, in the 47 years of the Islamic Republic, one of the biggest social losers have been women, which is why one of the first and earliest protests against the Islamic Republic, which was about the hijab issue, was led by women just months after this regime was established in 1979. So it's not a shocker then, as things go on and the Islamic Republic continues to really tout this brand of Islamism that not just women, but really all strands of society begin to push back. But there's no doubt that one of the most biggest losers of 47 years of an Islamic Republic, across two similarly hardline and fundamentalist supreme leaders who have been instituting that version of Islamism, have been women. So there are certain academic fields that women are prohibited from. There's certainly an underrepresentation in the job market, even though they can be overrepresented when it comes to advanced degrees. There's institutional discrimination at the judiciary and through the legal process of the Islamic Republic. And unfortunately, by institutionalizing Islamic law, it has done horrible things when it comes to, you know, the age of marriage, for example, a woman's right to divorce.

Host/Announcer (8:33)

Now, what do we know about Khomeini as a person? I know there have been some almost flattering puff pieces and obituaries in some of the Western media, but what do we know about what he was actually like?

Benham Ben Talablu (8:44)

Well, fortunately, I never met him, but based on having spent many years of my life having to read every. Every speech, every comment, every essay that this individual has written, you can tell that this individual has a fairly consistent worldview and a worldview that actually hardens or crystallizes the more they reach power. You know the old saying about power, which is that with power comes corruption, with absolute power comes absolute corruption. You really did begin to see that in the first few years of the tenure of Khamenei's supreme leadership. As a person, they say, however, Khamenei was a bit more timid. You could even say when it comes to crises, for example, every time there's a major protest, he retreats. This is something that some of his closest advisors and former family members who have been outspoken since the 2009 Green Revolution, have said and have put at the service of Persian diaspora media. But Khamenei is many things to many people. He's a hardline anti American theocrat. He is a failed poet. He is someone who carries the burdens and prejudices of coming from a very, very poor family that was discriminated against both for wealth as well as for going into the institution of the clergy to begin with. And he always really, I mean the failed poet thing in a sincere way because he always envisioned himself as some kind of master literary figure. But in reality, the hard, brutal truth was that he was not. He was in essence really just a mid level theocrat put in charge of a major national security state. And when you have all these pretensions and presumptions about power, but you don't have the capability to follow that through, the country will end up looking like Iran does look like today, which is a country of amazing potential, but that really has been driven into the ground. So despite what some people have reported in obituaries about his personal inclinations, that he likes to read Victor Hugo, it's his track record that matters. People are actually very complex. Terrorists can have families too. I'm not interested in how Khamenei treated his cousins or his brothers. I'm interested in what he did with the place where my ancestral family comes from right now.

John Bickley (10:58)

Who exactly will fill the power vacuum in the long term remains to be seen, of course. But even just with the fact that Khomeini is now out of the picture, how might that change things in the country now?

Benham Ben Talablu (11:11)

Well, even what we're looking at today, the Islamic Republic does not have a supreme leader. It does not have a commander in chief, but is still continuing a multi front missile and drone war against America, against Israel and against many of its Arab neighbors. Even just earlier it attacked Turkey, even which is a NATO allied country. So make no mistake, despite not being at the helm, the legacy of Ali Khamenei is felt very much across Iran's political institutions and military institutions. You could say there is a vacuum, but the Islamic Republic is acting like it would be expected to act. I mean, this is a regime that within hours after losing the commanding heights of the IRGC in the twelve Day War last June also did something similar and instituted massive missile barrages against Israel. So there is room at this point in time to have a more open debate as to how much of Iran's foreign and security policy was an 86 year old theocrat who had not left the country since 1989 really being involved in on a day to day basis, especially as he was sheltered and especially as electronic communications with him were cut.

John Bickley (12:15)

Now we have heard that not just the next level of leadership but maybe a few levels down have been completely wiped out. That's what Trump is saying. Of course there's a lot that's hard to confirm at this point. But who do we know right now in terms of who is calling the shots in Iran?

Benham Ben Talablu (12:31)

Well, I would say the most important person, the most important government entity and the most important institution in the country are as follows. It's Ali Larijani who is the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council. He's by far, in my view at the moment, the most important national security decision maker who is still alive, who is still that link between command and control and political institutions and military institutions, and also setting the general tone, tenor and tempo of where the state will go. The institution that he leads, the Supreme National Security Council, is the most important national security decision making body in the country. And then third, the most important institution writ large is the military, in particular the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. So for those who want to know where Iran will go or where Iran is headed, as we have rumors that Khamenei's son is supposed to succeed him as supreme leader, as we have, you know, reports that there is this interim leadership council of the president of another cleric named Rafi and the head of the judiciary named Eje, as those three are, quote, unquote, leading the country in a temporary leadership council. In reality, the power structure that matters is the Supreme National Security Council, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Ali Larijani.

Host/Announcer (13:46)

Now, even if those individuals were wiped out, presumably there are Iranians who are still loyal to the old regime. Do we know what percentage of the population falls in that category?

Benham Ben Talablu (13:57)

Well, unfortunately, given their cohesion, large swaths of the security services are loyal, as well as hardline political, military and religious elite, as well as you could assume, the some but not all of their family members and network of friends and veterans. Beyond that, in a country of about 91 and a half, 92 million, a back of the envelope assessment, all anecdotal, not really empirical, is at max 20, 15%, which can still be a sizable number in a country that is that big. And the minority strategy of rule is the strategy that Ali Khamenei had inherited and effective.

John Bickley (14:33)

Plus we've seen that approach can last for decades. Let's hope those days are done. Ben, thank you so much for coming on. We really appreciate your expertise.

Benham Ben Talablu (14:40)

Always a pleasure. Thank you.

Host/Announcer (14:43)

That was Ben and Ben Talablue of the foundation for Defense of Democracies. And this has been a weekend edition of Morning Wire.