Security policy making in the political thought of Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, opportunities and challenges

The decision-making process about security issues in the Islamic Republic of Iran is centralized in nature. Iran is considered among the countries that have a centralized political and security structure. Therefore, such a country has various formations of devices, institutions and processes that organize and implement security policy. Processes are intertwined in nature. Decision-making processes with a bureaucratic approach are given less attention. In this regard, each country, in accordance with its values, ideals, goals and national interests, takes steps to determine the necessary and appropriate processes for security policymaking, but the issue of security It is not simply possible, but this requires paying attention to the basics and analytical elements of security in each system. For example, the security issue of each assumed unit is related to its values, ideals, security reference and threats. The type of applied-developmental research and its method is descriptive-analytical.The purpose of this article is to explain the security policy in the political thought of Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei with emphasis on the existing opportunities and challenges. In order to achieve this purpose, the statements, letters, rulings and orders of the leadership, which are the intellectual reference of this issue, have been used. In this regard, His Holiness's statements in the field of the research topic were studied with the full number method and interviews were conducted with 20 elites and experts on the subject. Also, 110 questionnaires were distributed among the statistical sample population.