The Officials Khamenei Loves and Why?

In the past thirty-six years, Ali Khamenei has played a decisive role in the Islamic Republic system and the country's direction (towards social and moral collapse, forming a ruling caste with special privileges, state control of religious institutions, waste of resources, institutionalized corruption, and intensifying security threats) in his capacity as President and Supreme Leader. During this period, Khamenei has worked with thousands of managers; some have been sidelined by him, and others have faced such wrath that they have been placed under house arrest and travel bans; there have also been officials whose existence or absence has been indifferent to Khamenei because he did not consider them fully loyal (the shortsighted elite) but tolerated them due to necessity. These individuals have moved on to their economic endeavors after serving in ministerial or parliamentary roles and have had no place in Khamenei's household. He may have appointed members of the Motalefeh to the Expediency Council, but they are not his most favored managers. They do not speak against Khamenei and execute his orders, and Khamenei turns a blind eye to their corruption and abuses of power. They are, in fact, allies, and an event or transformation could lead to the collapse of this alliance (like Mir Hossein Mousavi and Karroubi, who exited their pact with Khamenei in 2009). However, there have been a group of managers who have either reached high positions under his pressure or, if not working in a government, have been among Khamenei's advisors and appointed by him in appointed bodies like the Guardian Council or the Expediency Council. Who are the most prominent of these figures, and why is Khamenei so interested in them? Khamenei's favored managers are those he believes he can rely on under any circumstances. Which of his favorite figures does Khamenei consider worthy of running the country and why? Ali Akbar Velayati has always been alongside Khamenei, whether as Foreign Minister for 16 years or as an advisor and member of the Foreign Relations Council for 19 years. After Rouhani left the Strategic Research Center in 2014, he was appointed to head this center (with the approval of Rafsanjani and Khamenei). Immediately after Rafsanjani's death, Khamenei appointed him as the head of the founding board of Azad University, a title that can only be attributed to someone involved in the establishment of this university. Why does Khamenei like Velayati so much? Because he is a serious foreigner-fearing and conspiracy-minded individual. He states about a large segment of the country's academics: 'Some of our educational centers also work for foreigners, paid or unpaid, and introduce elites to European and American cities, which are actually brokers of corruption.' (Mehr, March 9, 2017) He is also a staunch supporter of the Islamization of universities in ways that Khamenei prefers: 'Sometimes we receive reports from some places that Islamic principles are not being observed in these locations, and this issue should not be repeated.' (Same source) Velayati is a serious advocate of discrimination in education in favor of believing Muslims and insiders: 'A student at Azad University must be a Muslim, a believer, and a representative of the country's culture.' (Same source) Khamenei's choice for Prime Minister in 1985 was Mostafa Mir Salim, but leftist members of the parliament, with Khomeini's support, imposed Mir Hossein Mousavi's nomination on him. During Rafsanjani's era, after Khatami left the Ministry of Culture, and as Rafsanjani gradually handed over political and cultural ministries to Khamenei, Khamenei's favorite, Mir Salim, became Minister of Culture and implemented the harshest censorship against cultural figures. If censoring a book is akin to killing a belief system before its birth and is an unforgivable crime against the intellectual life of a writer and the culture of a country, Mir Salim committed mass murder in this regard. Mohseni Eje'i has been implementing Khamenei's directives directly in the judiciary for three decades. When he was sidelined from Ahmadinejad's government, he was immediately employed at high levels of the judiciary. Mohseni Eje'i is someone who would throw sugar bowls at other members in the Press Supervisory Board and bite them. He is among the 'fire-at-will' individuals that Khamenei loves. He operates in complete coordination with Khamenei's household and personally in suppressing media and government critics. Judge Mortezaei was a close associate of Eje'i and always had his support. Gholamali Haddad Adel and enmity with religious intellectualism Khamenei's interest in him has been so great that he has married into his family. Haddad Adel could not even work as a school teacher without proximity to the government and Islamists. His teaching method in master's and doctoral philosophy courses at Tehran University is reading a poorly translated book. He cannot even explain Kant's philosophy, which he claims to teach, to students in a few sentences. His other book on Kant is a scientific theft from a book translated by another individual (a peer of the author during their master's studies in philosophy at Tehran University). Such a person reaches the presidency of several academies and membership and presidency of the parliament (with the annulment of Rajai's vote, which the government caused by preventing him from seeing a doctor led to one of his eyes being dislodged) in the country, and no head of state touches his multiple positions because Khamenei loves him. Why does Khamenei love him? Because he is an enemy of reformism and secularism and has played an effective role in purging universities and research centers of non-conforming ideas. He and his family have several schools for training the ideological cadre of the government. Ahmad Jannati and political elimination Jannati has had the longest membership in the Guardian Council from 1980 to the present. Khamenei has changed many members of the Guardian Council, but Jannati has been stabilized in the position of Secretary of the Council. He is now the head of the Assembly of Experts, despite receiving low votes in the 2015 elections, and the temporary Friday prayer leader of Tehran. Like all the above individuals, Jannati has also been a member of the Expediency Council. Criticisms of Jannati, especially regarding disqualifications, have always been ongoing, but Khamenei has been a serious supporter of him. Jannati's positions on national issues have always been very close to Khamenei's positions. He embodies totalitarianism, authoritarianism, a system of discrimination, special privileges for clerics, and the government's repression machine. Khamenei's government could not have existed without the collaboration of individuals like Jannati. Those (like Hesamoddin Ashna) who kiss Jannati's hand are in fact kissing Khamenei's hand by proxy. The common feature of these officials is heartfelt bowing, obedience, complete compliance, and the execution of Khamenei's ideas. They have an irreconcilable enmity with Khamenei's opponents and critics and have sought to eliminate them from the public sphere. These individuals have the capacity to do anything to preserve the regime. They have been so favored by Khamenei that government managers do not dare to remove them from their government positions or question them. They maintain their positions in every government to some extent. All of these individuals are multi-job holders due to the trust Khamenei has in them. Without proximity to Khamenei, they could not play any role in social developments because they are neither theorists, nor organizers, nor possess social mobilization power. They could only reach a place in the government through proximity to tyranny. Due to the abundance of such individuals in Iranian society (along with an ideology of violence and hatred and a repression organization), tyranny in Iran has been able to reconstruct and persist after the fall of the monarchical regime.