Benham Ben-Taliblu

Ultimately, Khamenei's legacy was about preserving, protecting, and defending the Islamic Republic and the Islamic Revolution.

Abroad, he kept that government's disposition focused on exporting the revolution, on exporting terrorism, of seeking to pursue destabilizing weapons, including missiles and weapons of mass destruction, and continuing a foreign policy of death to America and death to Israel.

even at the peak of American military superiority and unipolarity, even when it came near its borders.

At home, it was a reign of fear, a reign of terror.

He basically institutionalized the Islamic Republic after it was founded.

He had strict dress codes that were always there from the

basically deflected blame from him for the mass repression and the institutionalization of Islamism.

But ultimately, the Iranian population rightly held him accountable.

So Khamenei's reign at home was a reign that did not budge, did not offer representative government, and really continued to push for the institutionalization of their own perverse brand of Twelver Shi'ism.

Well, unfortunately, in the 47 years of the Islamic Republic, one of the biggest social losers have been women, which is why one of the first and earliest protests against the Islamic Republic, which was about the hijab issue, was led by women just months after this regime was established in 1979.

So it's not a shocker that as things go on and the Islamic Republic continues to really tout this brand of Islamism, that not just women but really all strands of society begin to push back.

But there's no doubt that one of the most –

Biggest losers of 47 years of an Islamic Republic across two similarly hardline and fundamentalist supreme leaders who have been instituting that version of Islamism have been women.

So there are certain academic fields that women are prohibited from.

There's certainly an underrepresentation in the job market, even though they can be overrepresented when it comes to advanced degrees.

There's institutional discrimination at the judiciary and through the legal process of the Islamic Republic.

And unfortunately, by institutionalizing Islamic law, it has done horrible things when it comes to, you know, the age of marriage, for example, or a woman's right to divorce.

Well, fortunately, I never met him, but based on having spent many years of my life having to read every speech, every comment, every essay that this individual has written, you can tell that this individual has a fairly consistent worldview and a worldview that actually hardens or crystallizes the more they reach power.

The old saying about power, which is that with power comes corruption, with absolute power comes absolute corruption.

You really did begin to see that in the first few years of the tenure of Khamenei's supreme leadership.