Since assuming power in 1989, Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei did not find any president agreeable to his desires and line of thought until Ebrahim Raisi, the current president, took office in 2021. Even Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who came to office with the support of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), and pretended to be obedient to Khamenei, gradually adopted positions opposing Khamenei’s will, which, in his second term, brought him into direct conflict with the Iranian leader.
The conflict between Khamenei and the three presidents, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (1989-1997), Mohammad Khatami (1997-2005), and Hassan Rouhani (2013-2021), was mainly over the leader’s unconditional support of the hard-line conservatives, which on several occasions would lead to sabotaging the three presidents’ policies.
