Ever since�Iran reached an agreement with six world powers�earlier this year over its nuclear programme,�Ayatollah Ali Khamenei�has repeatedly warned against the cultural, political and economic influence of the US in Iran. Yet it was he who backed top Iranian officials in an unprecedented series of public � and secret � direct talks with American officials, which led to an agreement that very few observers would have thought possible three years ago.

This has left many analysts, as well as business owners, puzzled about the future of Iran-US relations. Now that�Iran�is opening its doors to foreign trade, who will be allowed to do business there and who will not? Might a McDonald�s finally make it to Tehran?

Since his youth, Ayatollah Khamenei has been fascinated by anti-colonial literature. In the early 1960s, he translated a book on India�s independence movement and the role of Muslims in it. He praises Nehru and Frantz Fanon. Unlike most clerics, he was close to leftist literary figures such as�Mehdi Akhavan-Sales,�Jalal Al-e-Ahmad�and�Ali Shariati. That doesn�t make him a socialist. He believes in private property and supports minimal government interference in the economy. It�s revolutionary anti-colonial ideas that have intrigued him.

Yet he admires the west�s achievements in science and technology, even though he warns that such progress cannot be sustained, given the materialism, individualism, consumerism and hedonism that to him is best symbolised by the US.

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