Anti-Americanism in Ayatollah Khamenei's Thought

In this article, it is attempted to explain the Ayatollah Khamenei's cognitive belief system and his pattern of Anti-Americanism, based on the heuristic method and content analysis technique. To extract this pattern, his statements were first adapted to the four types of Anti-Americanism introduced by Katzenstein and Keohane, but by observing the inadequacy of their patterns, a specific framework, named "Transcendental Anti-Americanism " has been derived and explained from Ayatollah Khamenei's ideas. Based on the transcendental paradigm, the actor is obliged, willing and confronted with divine guidance whose logic of action is to perform the divine duty based on transcendental rationality. Since Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's cognitive belief system is based on a monotheistic worldview, Islam is the main source of inspiration for his thoughts and ideas. Also, the Qur'an, the ideas of Imam Khomeini, the ideals of the Islamic Revolution, and the Iran’s national constitution are among the sub-sources in his Anti-Americanism pattern.