In 1987, I had a working breakfast with Khamenei, then the President of Iran, when he came to speak at the U.N., on his only trip to the U.S. or the West. With oversized glasses, a long graying beard, and a black turban, he struck me then as unworldly, naïvely arrogant about theocratic rule, and defensively furious at America for past interventions in Iran. At one point, a member of the Revolutionary Guard came over to cut up Khamenei’s breakfast meat. Khamenei had lost the use of his right arm after a small bomb hidden in a tape recorder, planted by an opposition group, went off as he was giving a sermon seven years earlier.