The Foolish Behavior of Iran Leader Khamenei

Ayatollah Khamenei belongs to the generation of clerics who became radicalized in the 1960s due to the secularizing modernization of the Shah and his policy of creeping de-islamization of society. The more or less implicit recognition of Israel by the Shah and his increasingly radical refusal to recognize the Shia clergy as a key group in society led the latter to harden their anti-Shah posture as well as their anti-imperialist and anti-Western attitude. In 1963, in Qom, protests instigated by Ayatollah Khomeini were held against the agrarian reform, but also against women’s rights and Iran’s turn towards secularization. Iran-backed Ansar Allah…