Jul 26, 2024
In June, Ayatollah Khamenei will mark 35 years as Iran’s Supreme Leader. He succeeded the radical Islamist Ayatollah Khomeini when the first leader of the Islamic Republic died of cancer in 1989. Like the rest of Iran’s power structure, Khamenei is a “twelver.” This branch of Shi’a Islam believes that the twelfth descendant of Mohammad, called the mahdi, will be revealed to earth following an apocalyptic war and place the entire world under submission to Islam.
The current Supreme Leader was born in Najaf in 1939 to Seyyed Javad Khamenei and Khadijeh Mirdamadi, the second of eight children. Khamenei’s education began at the age of four when he began studying the Quran. The following years were consumed with studies at seminary, but as with many other clerics of that time, Khamenei was far more involved with politics than religious scholarship. His tutelage to lay the foundation for his rule in Iran was provided by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini himself, the ultimate radical Islamic teacher. The developing grand ayatollah attended classes overseen by Khomeini, who taught a politicized version of Shi’a Islam in Qom, a holy site southwest of Tehran.
Khamenei’s life has not been without hazards and hitches. He was purportedly detained by the Iranian authorities several times during the reign of the shah of Iran. He barely avoided a targeted murder attempt in June 1981 by the Mujahedin-e Khalq, (or MEK, an exiled radical group that promotes the overthrow of the Islamic Republic of Iran). A bomb hidden in a tape recorder placed on the lectern during salat al-jumu’ah, the Friday prayer service at a mosque, exploded. Khamenei suffered wounds to his right arm, vocal chords, and lungs. His right arm was paralyzed as a result of the attack, an impediment he will suffer for the remainder of his life. When the recorder was later examined, a note was found inside that read, “A gift of Furqan Group to Islamic republic.” Furqan, a Shi’a militant group formed by the Iranian opposition, observed an anti-clerical Islamist dogma. It was said to have been responsible for the assassination of several senior officials in the country. Following the arrests and executions of its hierarchy, it was disbanded.
Author Reza Kahlili wrote of Khamenei’s rise in Iranian politics: “I had heard…that Ali Khamenei regularly came to…review the troops, and he was at least as much of a zealot about raising the flag of Islam across the world as Imam Khomeini. It was during this conflict [the Iraq war] that we learned that he believed we must continue to wage war until we destroyed all non-believers. Ali Khamenei also wanted Jerusalem and the return of one of the most sacred mosques and holiest places to Muslims, the Masjid al-Aqsa.”
Ali Khamenei soon found himself in the company of Khomeini’s inner circle. The younger cleric was quickly elevated to the post of deputy defense minister in the ayatollah’s government. Over the next decade, Khamenei surfaced in a number of governmental positions—Friday Prayers Iman, vice minister of national defense, and supervisor of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards. His ties to the Guards have afforded him protection from his opposition at times. The cleric and his wife, Khojaste Bagherzadeh, have four sons and two daughters.
Khemenei holds the highest position in Iran, both political and religious. He rules the military, legal system, media, and all strategic administrative bodies. His hold over the Guardian Council, the most controlling of all governmental entities, is absolute by virtue of his ability to appoint half of the Shi’a imams on the board. The other six individuals on the council are appointed by judges and approved by the Iranian parliament.
“No Right to Exist”
In 2015, Ayatollah Khamenei published a 400-page book called Palestine, which laid out his vision for the future of the Middle East. In no uncertain terms, Khamenei called for a single Muslim state to occupy all of the land of Israel to be ruled under Islamic sharia law. At the very beginning of the book, Khamenei declared that “ISRAEL HAS NO RIGHT TO EXIST AS A NATION.”
The book, which labels Israel as an enemy, lays out a specific plan to destroy the Jewish state. Khamenei says he does not support conventional “classical war” against Israel but rather calls for an escalating series of terror attacks that will drive the Jewish people to seek safety by fleeing from Israel.
Just as Hitler did in writing Mein Kampf years before coming to power in Germany, Khamenei is perfectly willing to lay out his plans, confident that the world will take no action to stop his evil plot. Iran has a long history of funding terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah to carry out third-party proxy attacks on Israel and on Jewish businesses, synagogues, and homes around the world.
The enmity of Iran toward Israel is well documented. Hundreds of speeches by the military, political, and religious leaders of the Islamic Republic have made it abundantly clear that Iran would love to see Israel destroyed. Though Israel is not a natural enemy of Iran—the countries do not share borders or compete for strategic resources, nor is there any history of warfare between them—the religious zealotry of those who believe a bloody war is essential to instituting Muslim rule over the entire earth has brought the two nations to the brink of war.
In dealing with Israel, Iran has three primary strategies. By better understanding how they are attacking the Jewish state (and make no mistake, although there is no open or declared war, the war is being fought every day), we can better pray for and support the Jewish people in these prophetic days.
Iran has funneled billions of dollars’ worth of military equipment, hardware, weaponry, and training to terrorist groups—money foolishly given them by Western governments, including America—primarily Hezbollah and Hamas. Hamas operates from Gaza and Hezbollah from Lebanon and Syria. By equipping Israel’s enemies on both the northern and southern borders, Iran hopes to tie Israel’s hands regarding a strike against its nuclear program.
Iran has hoped the threat of attacks would be a deterrent to Israel taking military action against them, but they have taken it to the next level with the Hamas attack. By using Hamas and Hezbollah as proxies in their war against Israel, Iran is able to remain one step removed from ongoing terror strikes on the Jewish state. With their hands officially clean, they are able to convince a world willing to be deceived that they are not responsible for the continual terror campaign against Israel, while still funding and directing much of this evil activity.
It is known that elements of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard are actively involved in the fighting in Syria, working hand-in-hand with Hezbollah terrorists. They are attempting to prop up the brutal Assad regime in Damascus. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed so far in the fighting, and more than a million refugees have fled looking for safety.
Israeli analysts are greatly concerned that Hezbollah will gain control of Syria’s large stocks of chemical and biological weapons and that Iran will help them transport these weapons of mass destruction to hidden caches so that they can be used against Israel in the future. Hezbollah plays a crucial role in Iran’s plans for America as well. It is important to remember that to Iran, Israel is only the “little Satan,” while America is the “great Satan.”
Their anger is not just directed at the Jewish state, but at the entire Western world, and particularly America. In part, this goes back to the Iranian revolution in 1979 and America’s involvement in helping the Shah of Iran take power in the 1950s, but it is also fueled by the clash of religious beliefs and the spirit war between light and darkness. Hezbollah operatives have been active for some time in Mexico, working with the powerful drug cartels that control much of our southern neighbor. This is of great concern to America’s defense experts because of the porous nature of the border with Mexico. Hundreds of thousands of people cross this border illegally, and the prospect of Hezbollah terror cells being smuggled into the United States to await the command to strike is very real.
Another Step in the Plot for the Road to Israel’s Destruction
Why did Hamas strike at Israel on October 7? Though there are many motives, the main reason was that Iran did it as a preemptive attack. Make no mistake, Iran’s fingerprints are all over this deadly war. The code name of the attack was the Al-Aqsa Flood—named for the mosque on top of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. They sent 3,000 terrorists trained in Iran, with Russian and North Korean and Iranian weapons into Israel. The attackers were promised $10,000 for killing Jews if they could prove it and also a new house for bringing back Jewish hostages.
The Temple Mount is ground zero for God’s prophetic plan for our world. And because of that it has been a target for Satan. Isaiah 14:13 records his plan to ascend the “sides of the north,” which is an ancient reference to that sacred place. By the way, your Friends of Zion Center is the closest Christian property to the Temple Mount—it’s within walking distance. God put us there “for such a time as this.”
The war has been going on for more than seven months now, and intelligence officials expect it to last eight to 12 months if it remains limited to Hamas in Gaza without Iran’s other proxies like Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen. But if those proxies go to war, and if Iran goes to war, we’re probably talking about a war lasting 24 to 36 months. The damage to Israel’s economy would be enormous. Right now Israel has 350,000 reservists they have called to active duty fighting and another 250,000 people homeless.
One of the reasons Iran is acting now is that Russia has promised to help Iran finish off its nuclear program and provide missiles for the nuclear weapons and also a nuclear umbrella, which will be Russian planes flying over Iranian airspace. This is in thanks for Iran’s help providing drones for the war in Ukraine. This threat is launching a nuclear arms race among the Sunni Gulf states. Saudi Arabia and many of the other Gulf states are already signing contracts to build nuclear reactors.
