Nearly two and a half millennia of monarchy came to an end with the emergence of an Islamic republic led by Ayatollah Khomeini. This particular type of regime is founded on a theory developed by Ayatollah Khomeini himself: the ‘velayat-e faghih,’ the guardianship of the Islamic jurist… Even if this concept originates in reality from the Shiite traditional theology, the manner in which it has been evolved by Khomeini is completely contradictory to the original notion. Why is the understanding of this idea indispensable to the appreciation of the Iranian political identity, including its international aspect? Just as the concept of ‘velayat-e faghih’ is an entirely hybrid one, torn between a religious reality and a political misappropriation, Iran’s political identity too is the result of an odd compromise between a historical context and a theocratic ambition. First of all, the contemporary concept of ‘velayat-e faghih’ is based on the idea that the legitimacy of the political power lie...