Sayyid Ali Hosseini Khamenei (Persian: syd 'ly Hsyny khmnhy, pronounced [?ae'li: hosei'ni: kha:mene'?i:] ( listen); born 17 July 1939) is a marja and the second and current Supreme Leader of Iran, in office since 1989. He was previously President of Iran from 1981 to 1989. Khamenei is the second-longest serving head of state in the Middle East (after Oman's Sultan Qaboos), as well as the second-longest serving Iranian leader of the last century, after Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. According to his official website, Khamenei was arrested six times before being sent into exile for three years during Mohammad Reza Pahlavi's reign.

Khamenei's era has differed from that of his predecessor. He has, however, continued Khomeini's policy of "balancing one group against another, making sure that no single side gains too much power." But lacking Khomeini's charisma and clerical standing, he has developed personal networks, first inside the armed forces, and then among the clerics, while administering the major bonyads and seminaries of Qom and Mashhad. According to Vali Nasr of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, "[Khamenei] [took] many of the powers of the presidency with him and [turned] the office of the supreme leader into the omnipotent overseer of Iran's political scene". In Nasr's view, Khamenei is an "unusual sort of dictator". Officials under Khamenei influence the country's various powerful, and sometimes bickering, institutions, including "the parliament, the presidency, the judiciary, the Revolutionary Guards, the military, the intelligence services, the police agencies, the clerical elite, the Friday prayer leaders and much of the media", as well as various "nongovernmental foundations, organizations, councils, seminaries and business groups". Khamenei issues decrees and makes the final decisions on economy, environment, foreign policy and everything else in Iran. Khamenei regularly meets with president, cabinet members, head and officials of the judiciary branch, parliamentarians, among others, and tells them what to do. Khamenei has also fired and reinstated Presidential cabinet appointments. Khamenei meets with foreign dignitaries, however he does not travel overseas; if anyone wishes to see him, that person must travel to Iran. Apart from his time in Najaf as a student, Khamenei travelled to Libya during his time as President. In his speeches Khamenei regularly mentions many familiar themes of the 1979 revolution: justice, independence, self-sufficiency, Islamic government and resolute opposition to Israel and United States, while rarely mentioning other revolutionary ideals such as democracy and greater government transparency. According to Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Khamenei has "resisted Rafsanjani's attempts to find a modus vivendi with the United States, Khatami's aspirations for a more democratic Islamic state, and Ahmadinejad's penchant for outright confrontation."

Ask a question about this article.
Was he ever arrested?