If anyone is interested in a different perspective (the Iranians you will interact with online know English, have affinity for the West, etc. These are not representative of majority of Iranians, just like many Americans aren't represented by the Twitteratti for example), there is a book by Hermann Hesse called The Glass Bead Game, where humanity has undergone a devastating Third World War and in attempt to keep it from ever happening again they install a council of ascetic Monks who have final veto power on any action of any state. The idea is that people who are experts in morality, who have no worldly attachments or things to gain by leveraging their power would be the best check on a society which routinely falls into war.

This is a very similar arrangement to Iran's "democracy" where the democracy runs but is checked by a figure whose "true" attachment is to God (or for non-believers at least to some kind of objective morality).

If you look from an average Iranian perspective, Ayatollah Khamenei is not just the leader of the country, he is also a venerable religious figure, an ascetic and someone who ostensibly cares little for worldly pleasures. If anyone were to have "guardianship" or veto power over a democracy, wouldn't he be a good guy to have it, from that perspective?

It's a lot of the same arguments you see for Trump. He doesn't need the money. He's not beholden to special interests because he's not a career politician, etc. Etc.

Just a different perspective. Many here allege torture and harsh imprisonment but these aren't inherent features of the system mentioned. They are things which could be fixed within the system as well. The same is true for American police brutality, for example.