Dictatorship in the Robe of Religion: Against Ali Khamenei, the Islamic Republic, and the Political Islam

Armin Enayati

No to the Islamic Republic. No to Islam. No to the chains of superstition that have shackled Iran for over four decades. This is not just a rejection of a political regime—it is a rejection of the entire religious ideology that justifies tyranny through fear, obedience, and divine fiction. Ali Khamenei is not merely a political leader; he is the embodiment of a decaying theocracy, a remnant of medieval power in the digital age, a man who governs not by reason or choice, but by dogma and coercion.

The Islamic Republic is the political arm of Shiite theology, built on blind obedience, fear of hell, and sanctified violence. This regime is not a deviation from Islam—it is the faithful execution of centuries-old dogmas celebrated in religious texts. Mandatory hijab, execution by stoning, amputation as punishment, systemic misogyny, queerphobia, suppression of dissent—none of these are aberrations. They are deeply rooted in Islamic jurisprudence. The regime merely updated the methods.

Khamenei, inheritor of Khomeini’s ideology, has perfected Shiite Islam as a totalitarian machine. As Supreme Leader, he is both caliph and king. Under his shadow, the law is irrelevant, justice is mute, and the human being is expendable. Every major institution—judiciary, military, media, intelligence—serves his command. His economic empire, veiled in religious piety, controls billions of dollars in public wealth through opaque institutions like the Execution of Imam Khomeini’s Order and the Foundation of the Oppressed. No accountability. No transparency. Just power.

Now, in 2025, amid deepening economic collapse and public anger, the regime that once promised to destroy imperialism is desperately negotiating with the very powers it labeled “Great Satan.” The current talks with the United States are not a symbol of reform—they are the confession of ideological bankruptcy. The same state that murdered protestors in November 2019 now begs for dollars to fund more tear gas, more bullets, more prisons. This is not diplomacy. This is bartering blood for survival.

Those who negotiate on behalf of the regime do not represent the Iranian people. They represent a criminal state desperate to delay its demise. Any agreement made under these terms is not a pathway to peace—it is a lifeline thrown to a dying dictatorship. And anyone who supports this deal is complicit in the continued suffocation of a nation.

But Khamenei is only part of the story. As long as Islam remains the official ideology of the state—its laws, its courts, its education—freedom has no meaning. The very texts of Islam, from the Quran to Shiite jurisprudence, justify the exclusion of women, persecution of non-believers, execution of apostates, and criminalization of love and thought. The problem is not just the clerics. It is the scripture that empowers them.

In this system, even laughter needs permission. Music is suspect. Dress is criminalized. Loving who you want is heresy. Reading, writing, dancing, breathing—all must pass through the filter of divine law. The regime doesn’t want citizens. It wants subjects. It doesn’t demand loyalty. It demands submission. Society has been turned into a religious barrack, and they call it the “Islamic Ummah.” All in the name of a god we never chose.

There is no way forward but total rupture. No to Islam. No to Shiism. No to guardianship of the jurist. We don’t want a reformed Islam. We want no Islam in our politics at all. We want full secularism, intellectual freedom, and the return of sovereignty to people—not to prophets, not to priests, and certainly not to tyrants.

Khamenei must fall. The Islamic Republic must collapse. But that is not the end. That is the beginning of healing—of emancipation from 1400 years of fear. The end of illusion. The dawn of a secular, just, and human future.