From accidental to absolute leader – who is Ayatollah Khamenei?
This Is Why
Sky News
4.0 • 552 Ratings
🗓️ 20 June 2025
⏱️ 22 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Khamanei first came to power as President of Iran in 1981, and he was a surprise choice for supreme leader eight years later. But since then, with the help of the Revolutionary Guard he has had almost complete control of Iran and its anti-Israel and anti-American foreign policy agenda.
Sky’s Tom Cheshire speaks to Alex Vatanka, founding director of the Iran program at the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC about how Khamanei is viewed inside Iran and how his policies contributed to the current crisis.
Producer: Soila Apparicio
Assistant producer: Araminta Parker
Editor: Wendy Parker
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Add water to your will. |
| 0:02.0 | And know that from that single drop, |
| 0:05.0 | life will grow. |
| 0:08.0 | Communities will flourish. |
| 0:10.0 | A better world will be left. |
| 0:13.0 | By leaving a gift in your will to Water Aid, |
| 0:16.0 | you'll help bring essential clean water to people who need it, |
| 0:20.0 | to change their own lives for generations |
| 0:22.4 | to come. Add Water Aid to your will. Search WaterAid legacy to find out how. At TFO, we're opening |
| 0:31.9 | up more of London for everyone with step-free access. We're continuing to improve accessibility |
| 0:37.1 | at many of our stations, |
| 0:38.9 | and now over 200 stations and counting have step-free access, including the entire Elizabeth |
| 0:44.4 | line, DLR and all tram stops. That is how we're making the greener way to travel more accessible |
| 0:50.5 | to all. Such TFL improvement plan, to the Mayor of London and TFL every journey matters. |
| 0:57.3 | Greener than total estimated petrol and diesel car emissions. |
| 1:01.4 | Ayatollah Ali Hamini, Iran's often reclusive supreme leader, while he surfaced this week to hit |
| 1:06.9 | back at Donald Trump's demands for an unconditional surrender. But who is he and who is his inner circle? |
| 1:13.6 | Back after this. |
| 1:16.1 | I'm Tom Cheshire and this is the Sky News Daily. |
| 1:21.1 | Ali Hamani has led Iran for 35 years. |
| 1:24.8 | After conflict with Israel escalated last week, |
| 1:27.2 | he firmly announced Iran would never surrender. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Sky News, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Sky News and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.