After 30 years in power, Iran’s supreme leader faces toughest challenge

In his more than three decades in charge of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has battled to consolidate power at home and expand the regime’s influence across the region. But the 80-year-old leader faces his toughest challenge yet as he seeks to unify a fractured establishment and calm people angry at the alleged cover-up of the cause of a plane crash last week. In recent days, public mourning at the US assassination of military commander Qassem Suleimani has turned to rage after it emerged that Iran had mistakenly shot down a Ukraine International Airlines jet, killing 176 people. “The relationship between the nation and the state has never been as split as it is today,...