Who is the Mullah with That Gun in His Hand in New York City?

Since Friday, April 30, 2021, passers-by walking on Manhattan’s 8th Avenue towards the Village, passing in front of the New York Times Tower, at the corner of W40th Street, see a large black-and-white billboard on the brick façade of an old building in front of them. If you are Iranian, you can tell from the corner of 41st, who the cleric with the gun is, whose picture is embossed on the 32’ x 13’ billboard: Ali Khamenei. But if you sit in the tower and write for the New York Times, you may not know why Iranian citizens have planted…