Will Ali Khamenei and Donald Trump ever meet?
Perhaps an elusive handshake awaits
By Nick Pelham, Middle East correspondent, The Economist
Since 1979, the Islamic republic of Iran has brandished four core slogans: death to Israel, death to America, export the Islamic Revolution and “cover or suffer”, an injunction for women to veil. The regime’s resolve to implement them has waxed and waned, but it has never formally abandoned them. Without them, supporters of Ayatollah Ali Khamanei, the 85-year-old supreme leader, might ask, what remains of the Islamic republic?
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This article appeared in the Middle East & Africa section of the print edition of The World Ahead 2025 under the headline “Mr Khamenei and Mr Trump”
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