The current supreme leader Ali Khamenei, ruling Iran for more than three decades, has issued decrees and made final decisions on economy, education, environment, foreign policy, national planning, and almost everything else in the country.

Israel sees Iran as an existential threat. Israel has accused Iran of harboring genocidal intentions, while Iran has accused Israel of conducting a genocide in Gaza. Consequently, Israel has sought sanctions and military action against Iran to stop it from acquiring nuclear weapons.

The United States attributes the worsening of relations to the 1979–81 Iran hostage crisis, Iran's repeated human rights abuses since the Islamic Revolution, different restrictions on using spy methods on democratic revolutions by the US, its anti-Western ideology and its nuclear program.