Saturday, June 08, 2013 11:19:52 PM
The Supreme Leader ..
Karim Sadjadpour
.. this post prompted by a radio interview just heard .. on how Khamenei and Ahmadinejad had centralized
power in Iran .. how they have diminished Iran republican institutions, which the liberal Khatami,
Mohammad Khatami (Persian: ??? ???? ??????, pronounced [sej'jed mohæm'mæde x??tæ'mi?]; born 29 September 1943) is an Iranian scholar, Shia theologian, and Reformist politician. He served as the fifth President of Iran from 2 August 1997 to 3 August 2005. He also served as Iran's Minister of Culture in both the 1980s and 1990s. He is currently one of the leaders of the Iranian Green Movement, and an outspoken critic of President Ahmadinejad's government.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Khatami ..
as president, had espoused and nurtured a mere 7 years ago .. when it feels right .. please enjoy .. :)
* Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is Iran’s most powerful official. As supreme leader, he has constitutional authority or substantial influence over the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government as well as the military and media.
* Khamenei lacks the religious credentials and popular support of his predecessor, revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. As a result, Khamenei has been more insecure and vulnerable to criticism from religious and political circles.
* Khamenei had tried to cultivate the image of a magnanimous guide above the political fray. But his support of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the disputed 2009 elections—amid mass protests and unprecedented political fissures—further undermined his legitimacy and support.
* Khamenei is primarily interested in protecting his power and ensuring the survival of the Islamic theocracy, which he believes is based on justice, independence, self-sufficiency and piety.
* Khamenei’s foreign policy is driven by animosity to the United States and Israel. It is unclear whether he could abandon this position without undermining the raison d’etre of the Islamic system.
Overview
There are few leaders in the world more important to current world affairs but lessunderstood than Ayatollah Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran. He is the single most powerful individual in a highly factionalized, autocratic regime. No major decisions can be taken without his consent, and his top priorities are his own survival and that of the Islamic Republic.
In theory, Iran’s constitution was meant to combine theocracy with republicanism. But in practice, Iran’s unelected institutions, namely the supreme leader and 12-man Guardian Council, wield far more power than elected institutions like the presidency and parliament. The Guardian Council has the authority to vet all candidates for public office and disqualify any who are not deemed sufficiently loyal to the supreme leader.
Khamenei lacks the popular support, charisma and theological qualifications that Khomeini enjoyed, but his ability to stay out of the limelight contributed to his political resilience—until recently. He has consistently favored conservatives over reformers. His image as the great balancer has been seriously challenged by the disputed 2009 elections, his staunch defense of Ahmadinejad, and the crackdown on protesters.
Khamenei’s rise
Khamenei was born in 1939 to a traditional family of humble origins. His father was a cleric, and he began a religious education at a young age. In his early twenties, he studied under Ayatollah Khomeini in Qom; through Khomeini he became involved in the rebellion against the shah. He was arrested numerous times in the 1960s and 1970s, spending several years in prison where he was tortured by the Savak secret police.
After the shah’s ouster, Khamenei briefly served as minister of defense and then supervisor of the Revolutionary Guards. In 1981, he survived an assassination attempt that paralyzed his right arm. Later that year, after one president was impeached and a second assassinated, Khamenei was asked by the revolutionary elites to run for president. He served the maximum two terms, from 1981 to 1989. His tenure was dominated by the Iran-Iraq War, but he played a secondary political role behind Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi, Speaker of the Parliament Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, and Revolutionary Guard Commander Mohsen Rezai.
Ayatollah Khomeini died in 1989 just months after firing his heir apparent, leaving no designated replacement. With the help of Rafsanjani, Khamenei emerged as the default choice to become the new supreme leader. His appointment was opposed by some senior clerics who felt he was unqualified, but the Assembly of Experts eventually approved him. Today, his likeness—black turban, oversized glasses, Palestinian kaffiyeh, and untrimmed gray beard—is ubiquitous in shop and government offices, and on billboards.
The leader’s powers
Revolutionary leader Ayatollah Khomeini introduced the concept of velayat-e faqih, or guardianship of the jurist. It is derived from Shiite Islam, which believes twelve imams descended from the Prophet Mohammed who inherited his political and religious authority. The twelfth imam went into occultation or hiding in the 9th century, and Twelver Shiites believe he will one day return as a messiah. In the absence of the twelfth imam, Khomeini argued, the missing imam’s authority on earth could be exercised by a supreme leader chosen from among the clergy.
As supreme leader, Khamenei has constitutional authority over the judiciary, the regular armed forces and the elite Revolutionary Guards, and the state-controlled media. He also has effective control over Iran’s second most powerful institution, the 12-member Guardian Council, which has the authority to vet electoral candidates and veto parliamentary decisions. (Khamenei appoints half its members, as well as the judicial chief who appoints the other half.) The Iranian economy is largely state-controlled, and Khamenei has the most authority over how the country’s oil revenue is spent. He also has control over the country’s bonyads—charitable foundations with billions of dollars in assets—in addition to the millions more his office receives in charitable donations offered to Iran’s holy shrines.
Despite his constitutional powers, Khamenei has often been overshadowed by Iran’s presidents. From 1989 to 1997, foreign governments and the international media perceived parliamentary speaker Rafsanjani, not Khamenei, as Iran’s most powerful official. From 1997 to 2005, President Mohammad Khatami upstaged Khamenei from the left with his calls for reform at home and a “dialogue of civilizations” with the West. Since 2005, Ahmadinejad has outflanked him from the right with his diatribes against Israel and Holocaust revisionism. Yet Khamenei’s views have ultimately prevailed: His domestic vision for Iran is more Islamic than republican. And his foreign policy position is neither outright confrontation nor accommodation.
Several factors have also helped Khamenei gradually consolidate power: He created a vast network of “clerical commissars” in major public institutions who are empowered to intervene in state matters to enforce his authority. Parliament is currently a weak body dominated by conservatives. The Revolutionary Guards, whose leaders he appoints, are increasingly important to both politics and the economy. His most powerful peers, such as Rafsanjani, have at least temporarily been sidelined.
Revolutionary values
For Khamenei, the 1979 revolution was about ridding Iran of two evils—the shah and the United States—and creating a theocratic government imbued with four core values: justice, independence, self-sufficiency and Islamic piety. These revolutionary ideals continue to dominate Khamenei’s political discourse, and he interweaves them seamlessly: Islam embodies justice. Independence requires self-sufficiency. And foreign powers are hostile to an independent, Islamic Iran.
Khamenei’s vision for a just Islamic society translates as a form of religious socialism. Western governments fail, he argues, because the whims of capitalism and self-interest deny justice to millions. He has championed privatization efforts, yet state subsidies for basic food items and other essentials remain Iran’s chief method of providing economic development and social justice.
Four foreign policy themes
The United States: For Khamenei, the Islamic Republic’s top four foreign policy priorities include resistance against the United States and Israel, which he sees as two sides of the same coin. Khamenei believes that Washington aspires to go back to the patron-client relationship with Iran that existed during the Pahlavi monarchy. His primary concern is not a U.S. military invasion, but rather a political and cultural campaign to undermine theocratic rule through a “soft” or “velvet” revolution.
The peace process: The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has little impact on the daily lives of Iranians, but Khamenei’s contempt for Israel has been remarkably consistent. He has argued that “if Iran stops its support of the Lebanese and Palestinian people [i.e. Hezbollah and Hamas], the United States will also change its hostile attitude toward the Islamic Republic. [But] we consider supporting the Palestinian and Lebanese people one of our major Islamic duties.” Arguably, the only way that Khamenei would accept a less strident position toward Israel is when and if the Palestinians themselves accept a peace treaty with Israel.
Nuclear program: For Khamenei, the nuclear program has come to embody the revolution’s core themes: the struggle for independence, the injustice of foreign powers, the necessity of self-sufficiency, and Islam’s high esteem for the sciences. He wants to ensure that Iran is scientifically and technologically advanced enough to be self-sufficient, self-sufficient enough to be economically independent, and economically independent enough to be politically independent.
Islamic world: Khamenei envisions Iran as the vanguard of the Islamic world. On his official website, he is referred to as the “Supreme Leader of Muslims.” Given Iran’s political, cultural and religious influence, he believes none of the critical issues facing the Middle East and Muslim world—Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Persian Gulf security and the Arab-Israeli conflict—can be fully addressed or resolved without Tehran’s input.
Challenges
Khamenei has always been notoriously thin-skinned. Until the 2009 election, public criticism of the supreme leader was one of the few red lines in Iranian politics. It is still a virtual guarantee of a prison sentence. His own family is not above reproach. For years, his younger brother, reformist cleric and former Member of Parliament Hadi Khamenei, has criticized the excessive powers of the supreme leader in newspaper columns and lectures at universities and seminaries—at a price. He has been beaten by vigilantes and disqualified from running again for office.
Khamenei’s legitimacy was among the many casualties of the tainted 2009 presidential election. Taboos were shattered when hundreds of thousands of Iranians defied his sermon supporting the outcome and calling for calm; they instead took to the streets of cities throughout Iran chanting “death to the dictator” and “death to Khamenei.” Among Iran’s pious classes, images of government-sanctioned brutality against civilians further undermined his image as a just spiritual leader. Since then, once-respectful subordinates such as Khatami and Mousavi have openly defied him. His chief rival, Rafsanjani, publicly humiliated as a corrupt traitor by Ahmadinejad, waits in the wings for an opportunity to pounce.
Before the presidential elections, Khamenei appeared to have a lifelong lock on the job of supreme leader. But his fate became far less certain after six months of sporadic turmoil. To regain control, he has grown increasingly reliant on Iran’s vast intelligence networks, security forces and military. His future rests most of all in the hands of the Revolutionary Guards. With their apparently strong support, Khamenei has refused to cede any political ground since the election, on the grounds that compromise projects weakness and invites further challenges.
Engagement possibilities
The Obama administration has tried harder than any previous administration to engage Iran, and Khamenei in particular. In his first year, President Obama sent two private letters to Khamenei outlining Washington’s genuine interesting in overcoming overcome past mistrust and rebuilding relations with Tehran. After the election, Obama also resisted calls to support Tehran’s opposition, even as Washington became increasingly critical of Iran’s human rights violations.
In response, Khamenei mocked Obama’s mantra of change as merely a tactical shift. He said Washington must first change its actions—by lifting sanctions, unfreezing Iranian assets, diluting support for Israel and ceasing criticism of Iran—to show its seriousness. Behind closed doors, however, senior Iranian politicians have conceded that Obama’s overtures unsettled Khamenei and put pressure on him to justify Tehran’s continued animosity toward the United States.
The future
* Prospects for reconciliation with the United States are low while Khamenei remains in power. At the same time, any engagement policy Iran that aims to ignore or bypass Khamenei is equally unlikely to succeed.
* In both the domestic and international context, Khamenei is averse to compromise under pressure, fearful of projecting weakness and inviting greater pressure.
* Khamenei worries about opposition to his rule among top clerics in Qom, but opposition within the Revolutionary Guards would be far more dangerous for him.
* Khamenei has not appointed an heir apparent and there are no obvious successors, should he die or be removed from power. The supreme leader could be replaced with a shura (consultative) council, although the selection of a council could face many problems.
Karim Sadjadpour is an associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
and the author of “Reading Khamenei: The Worldview of Iran’s Most Powerful Leader.”
http://iranprimer.usip.org/resource/supreme-leader
====== .. an Israeli right-wing newspaper fits on Ahmadinejad ..
Magazine critique of Ahmadinejad exposes internal rifts
By DAVID ROSENBERG / THE MEDIA LINE
LAST UPDATED: 11/09/2010 13:41
Iran president accused of amassing too much power at allies' expense;
harshly worded editorial appears in Revolutionary Guards' magazine.
Ahmadinejad in Beirut, Thursday Photo: Associated Press
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who smothered his reformist opposition in the wake of last year’s elections, faces a new and potentially dangerous threat from the people and groups he once relied on as his closest allies.
The opposition to what many in Iran regard as Ahmadinejad’s increasingly centralized rule had been largely conducted behind the scenes. But it has suddenly emerging in a harshly worded editorial in the Iran Revolutionary Guards' monthly magazine Payam-e Enghelab (Message of the Revolution) on a seemingly obscure subject on the role of the country’s parliament.
RELATED:
Iran tightens internal security prior to subsidy cuts
http://www.jpost.com/IranianThreat/News/Article.aspx?id=193985
Ahmadinejad: Western 'arrogance' will topple nuke talks
http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=193868
“You have an independent president for the first time since the revolution. Ahmadinejad is undermining the leadership and this could lead to an [unraveling] of the current system," Ali Alfoneh, a resident fellow, at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, told The Media Line.
Outside of Iran, Ahmadinejad is seen as a powerful figure who is resisting Western pressure to abandon the country’s controversial nuclear program, challenging America in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon, and crushing his reformists’ opponents after he won the 2009 presidential elections. At home, however, the president’s growing power has alienated everyone from his one-time patron, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, too many in the Guards.
Ahmadinejad exposed the fissure in Iran’s ruling circles in an interview with the Iran daily. He asserted that the executive branch of government is superior to parliament and should be responsible for running the country. Parliament’s job, he said, is to support presidential rule.
“Now the executive branch has to run the country and other branches have to support it,” wrote Ahmadinejad.
Payam-e Enghelab countered with an editorial last week by accusing the president of upsetting the balance of power in Iran’s political system and of employing “Persianism” rather than “Islamism” as the ideological basis of government. This was a serious accusation in a state that disdains nationalism over religion. "Does being on top justify whatever action the government thinks is right, disregarding the law?" the magazine asked.
Parliament is the bastion of Iran’s conservative establishment and an attack on it by the president was bound to elicit a response, Alireza Nader, an international policy analyst at the RAND Corp., wrote in a commentary for the online news magazine Tehranbureau.com. They view Ahmadinejad's claim as an attempt to undermine their authority.
But for Ahmadinejad the more painful accusation is that his efforts to put presidential rule at the top of the power apex contradicted the political principles of the Islamic state as established by the Ayatollah Khomeini, the deeply revered founder of Iran’s Islamic state. Although he died in 1989, Khomieni’s philosophy officially continues to guide it. Indeed, the conservatives are known as “principalists” for their self-proclaimed strict adherence to Khomeini’s views.
Nader said the Guards are by no means all aligned against Ahmadinejad, who himself is a veteran of the organization and has vastly expanded its political power since he was first elected to office in 2005. But many in the Guards’ leadership are pleased to see the president being cut down to size, he said.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei supported Ahmadinejad in both presidential elections, but now the ayatollah fears the president has grown too strong and so he is trying to create a counter power, said Alfoneh in a telephone interview from Washington D.C...
“For the Revolutionary Guards, a policy of ‘resistance’ against the U.S. is ideal even if it entails costs, but it has to produce tangible benefits for the regime's military elite,” Nader wrote on Tehran.com. “United Nations sanctions and Iran's loss of support from key partners such as Russia have been interpreted as failures.”
The Guards’ political ascendency began during the years Iran was ruled by reformist President Mohammad Khatami. But their power may have peaked during Ahmadinejad's first term, beginning in 2005.
Meanwhile, the Iranian Green Movement, whose supporters took to the street in the summer of 2009 to protest what they alleged was a fraudulent election, isn’t a player in the power struggle, according to Alfoneh.
Yet Nader said Ahmadinejad's disregard of parliament has pushed some hardliners in the principalist faction closer together with the more moderate reformists.
The rifts have prompted Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to call for all branches of government to support the president whose government he has hailed as extremely successful.
“National unity is very important and must be strengthened with every passing day... and by that I am addressing both officials and ordinary people," Khamenei said during his recent visit to the holy city of Qom.
Kalindi O’Brien contributed to this report
http://www.jpost.com/Iranian-Threat/News/Magazine-critique-of-Ahmadinejad-exposes-internal-rifts
======
Iran’s Top 20
May 22, 2009 8:00 PM EDT
Power and public discourse in the Islamic Republic are dominated by fewer than two
dozen heavyweights, ranging from ayatollahs to entertainers (and one TV network).
1. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei - Supreme Leader
2. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - President
3. Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani - Eminence Grise
4. Mohammad Khatami - Ex-President
5. Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati - Oversight Chief
6. Ali Larijani - Majlis Speaker
7. Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari - Revolutionary Guards Commander
8. Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf - Mayor of Tehran
9. Ayatollah Abbas Vaez-Tabasi - Holy Estate Director
10. Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi - Radical Scholar
11. Seyyed Javad Shahrestani - Sistani's Envoy
12. Saeed Mortazavi - Prosecutor General of Tehran
13. Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi - Head of Judiciary
14. Mojtaba Samareh Hashemi - Campaign Manager
15. Mir Hossein Mousavi - Ex–Prime Minister
16. Mohsen Rezaei - Khamenei Adviser
Details on each inside: http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2009/05/22/iran-s-top-20.html
.. gut mutters, if we fail to settle the conflict with Iran without war balance of blame will lie with us .. yes, it takes two to tango .. yes, the nuclear weapon issue is of concern to Russia and China also .. yet, who has little echoed the undeniable right to Iran of nuclear for peaceful means as clearly as they have .. could we emphasis that statement by Iran maybe even just a bit more .. and who sits with the history of aggression on their side .. i dunno .. just one inconsequential mumble mutter .. lol ..
Karim Sadjadpour
.. this post prompted by a radio interview just heard .. on how Khamenei and Ahmadinejad had centralized
power in Iran .. how they have diminished Iran republican institutions, which the liberal Khatami,
Mohammad Khatami (Persian: ??? ???? ??????, pronounced [sej'jed mohæm'mæde x??tæ'mi?]; born 29 September 1943) is an Iranian scholar, Shia theologian, and Reformist politician. He served as the fifth President of Iran from 2 August 1997 to 3 August 2005. He also served as Iran's Minister of Culture in both the 1980s and 1990s. He is currently one of the leaders of the Iranian Green Movement, and an outspoken critic of President Ahmadinejad's government.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Khatami ..
as president, had espoused and nurtured a mere 7 years ago .. when it feels right .. please enjoy .. :)
* Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is Iran’s most powerful official. As supreme leader, he has constitutional authority or substantial influence over the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government as well as the military and media.
* Khamenei lacks the religious credentials and popular support of his predecessor, revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. As a result, Khamenei has been more insecure and vulnerable to criticism from religious and political circles.
* Khamenei had tried to cultivate the image of a magnanimous guide above the political fray. But his support of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the disputed 2009 elections—amid mass protests and unprecedented political fissures—further undermined his legitimacy and support.
* Khamenei is primarily interested in protecting his power and ensuring the survival of the Islamic theocracy, which he believes is based on justice, independence, self-sufficiency and piety.
* Khamenei’s foreign policy is driven by animosity to the United States and Israel. It is unclear whether he could abandon this position without undermining the raison d’etre of the Islamic system.
Overview
There are few leaders in the world more important to current world affairs but lessunderstood than Ayatollah Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran. He is the single most powerful individual in a highly factionalized, autocratic regime. No major decisions can be taken without his consent, and his top priorities are his own survival and that of the Islamic Republic.
In theory, Iran’s constitution was meant to combine theocracy with republicanism. But in practice, Iran’s unelected institutions, namely the supreme leader and 12-man Guardian Council, wield far more power than elected institutions like the presidency and parliament. The Guardian Council has the authority to vet all candidates for public office and disqualify any who are not deemed sufficiently loyal to the supreme leader.
Khamenei lacks the popular support, charisma and theological qualifications that Khomeini enjoyed, but his ability to stay out of the limelight contributed to his political resilience—until recently. He has consistently favored conservatives over reformers. His image as the great balancer has been seriously challenged by the disputed 2009 elections, his staunch defense of Ahmadinejad, and the crackdown on protesters.
Khamenei’s rise
Khamenei was born in 1939 to a traditional family of humble origins. His father was a cleric, and he began a religious education at a young age. In his early twenties, he studied under Ayatollah Khomeini in Qom; through Khomeini he became involved in the rebellion against the shah. He was arrested numerous times in the 1960s and 1970s, spending several years in prison where he was tortured by the Savak secret police.
After the shah’s ouster, Khamenei briefly served as minister of defense and then supervisor of the Revolutionary Guards. In 1981, he survived an assassination attempt that paralyzed his right arm. Later that year, after one president was impeached and a second assassinated, Khamenei was asked by the revolutionary elites to run for president. He served the maximum two terms, from 1981 to 1989. His tenure was dominated by the Iran-Iraq War, but he played a secondary political role behind Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi, Speaker of the Parliament Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, and Revolutionary Guard Commander Mohsen Rezai.
Ayatollah Khomeini died in 1989 just months after firing his heir apparent, leaving no designated replacement. With the help of Rafsanjani, Khamenei emerged as the default choice to become the new supreme leader. His appointment was opposed by some senior clerics who felt he was unqualified, but the Assembly of Experts eventually approved him. Today, his likeness—black turban, oversized glasses, Palestinian kaffiyeh, and untrimmed gray beard—is ubiquitous in shop and government offices, and on billboards.
The leader’s powers
Revolutionary leader Ayatollah Khomeini introduced the concept of velayat-e faqih, or guardianship of the jurist. It is derived from Shiite Islam, which believes twelve imams descended from the Prophet Mohammed who inherited his political and religious authority. The twelfth imam went into occultation or hiding in the 9th century, and Twelver Shiites believe he will one day return as a messiah. In the absence of the twelfth imam, Khomeini argued, the missing imam’s authority on earth could be exercised by a supreme leader chosen from among the clergy.
As supreme leader, Khamenei has constitutional authority over the judiciary, the regular armed forces and the elite Revolutionary Guards, and the state-controlled media. He also has effective control over Iran’s second most powerful institution, the 12-member Guardian Council, which has the authority to vet electoral candidates and veto parliamentary decisions. (Khamenei appoints half its members, as well as the judicial chief who appoints the other half.) The Iranian economy is largely state-controlled, and Khamenei has the most authority over how the country’s oil revenue is spent. He also has control over the country’s bonyads—charitable foundations with billions of dollars in assets—in addition to the millions more his office receives in charitable donations offered to Iran’s holy shrines.
Despite his constitutional powers, Khamenei has often been overshadowed by Iran’s presidents. From 1989 to 1997, foreign governments and the international media perceived parliamentary speaker Rafsanjani, not Khamenei, as Iran’s most powerful official. From 1997 to 2005, President Mohammad Khatami upstaged Khamenei from the left with his calls for reform at home and a “dialogue of civilizations” with the West. Since 2005, Ahmadinejad has outflanked him from the right with his diatribes against Israel and Holocaust revisionism. Yet Khamenei’s views have ultimately prevailed: His domestic vision for Iran is more Islamic than republican. And his foreign policy position is neither outright confrontation nor accommodation.
Several factors have also helped Khamenei gradually consolidate power: He created a vast network of “clerical commissars” in major public institutions who are empowered to intervene in state matters to enforce his authority. Parliament is currently a weak body dominated by conservatives. The Revolutionary Guards, whose leaders he appoints, are increasingly important to both politics and the economy. His most powerful peers, such as Rafsanjani, have at least temporarily been sidelined.
Revolutionary values
For Khamenei, the 1979 revolution was about ridding Iran of two evils—the shah and the United States—and creating a theocratic government imbued with four core values: justice, independence, self-sufficiency and Islamic piety. These revolutionary ideals continue to dominate Khamenei’s political discourse, and he interweaves them seamlessly: Islam embodies justice. Independence requires self-sufficiency. And foreign powers are hostile to an independent, Islamic Iran.
Khamenei’s vision for a just Islamic society translates as a form of religious socialism. Western governments fail, he argues, because the whims of capitalism and self-interest deny justice to millions. He has championed privatization efforts, yet state subsidies for basic food items and other essentials remain Iran’s chief method of providing economic development and social justice.
Four foreign policy themes
The United States: For Khamenei, the Islamic Republic’s top four foreign policy priorities include resistance against the United States and Israel, which he sees as two sides of the same coin. Khamenei believes that Washington aspires to go back to the patron-client relationship with Iran that existed during the Pahlavi monarchy. His primary concern is not a U.S. military invasion, but rather a political and cultural campaign to undermine theocratic rule through a “soft” or “velvet” revolution.
The peace process: The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has little impact on the daily lives of Iranians, but Khamenei’s contempt for Israel has been remarkably consistent. He has argued that “if Iran stops its support of the Lebanese and Palestinian people [i.e. Hezbollah and Hamas], the United States will also change its hostile attitude toward the Islamic Republic. [But] we consider supporting the Palestinian and Lebanese people one of our major Islamic duties.” Arguably, the only way that Khamenei would accept a less strident position toward Israel is when and if the Palestinians themselves accept a peace treaty with Israel.
Nuclear program: For Khamenei, the nuclear program has come to embody the revolution’s core themes: the struggle for independence, the injustice of foreign powers, the necessity of self-sufficiency, and Islam’s high esteem for the sciences. He wants to ensure that Iran is scientifically and technologically advanced enough to be self-sufficient, self-sufficient enough to be economically independent, and economically independent enough to be politically independent.
Islamic world: Khamenei envisions Iran as the vanguard of the Islamic world. On his official website, he is referred to as the “Supreme Leader of Muslims.” Given Iran’s political, cultural and religious influence, he believes none of the critical issues facing the Middle East and Muslim world—Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Persian Gulf security and the Arab-Israeli conflict—can be fully addressed or resolved without Tehran’s input.
Challenges
Khamenei has always been notoriously thin-skinned. Until the 2009 election, public criticism of the supreme leader was one of the few red lines in Iranian politics. It is still a virtual guarantee of a prison sentence. His own family is not above reproach. For years, his younger brother, reformist cleric and former Member of Parliament Hadi Khamenei, has criticized the excessive powers of the supreme leader in newspaper columns and lectures at universities and seminaries—at a price. He has been beaten by vigilantes and disqualified from running again for office.
Khamenei’s legitimacy was among the many casualties of the tainted 2009 presidential election. Taboos were shattered when hundreds of thousands of Iranians defied his sermon supporting the outcome and calling for calm; they instead took to the streets of cities throughout Iran chanting “death to the dictator” and “death to Khamenei.” Among Iran’s pious classes, images of government-sanctioned brutality against civilians further undermined his image as a just spiritual leader. Since then, once-respectful subordinates such as Khatami and Mousavi have openly defied him. His chief rival, Rafsanjani, publicly humiliated as a corrupt traitor by Ahmadinejad, waits in the wings for an opportunity to pounce.
Before the presidential elections, Khamenei appeared to have a lifelong lock on the job of supreme leader. But his fate became far less certain after six months of sporadic turmoil. To regain control, he has grown increasingly reliant on Iran’s vast intelligence networks, security forces and military. His future rests most of all in the hands of the Revolutionary Guards. With their apparently strong support, Khamenei has refused to cede any political ground since the election, on the grounds that compromise projects weakness and invites further challenges.
Engagement possibilities
The Obama administration has tried harder than any previous administration to engage Iran, and Khamenei in particular. In his first year, President Obama sent two private letters to Khamenei outlining Washington’s genuine interesting in overcoming overcome past mistrust and rebuilding relations with Tehran. After the election, Obama also resisted calls to support Tehran’s opposition, even as Washington became increasingly critical of Iran’s human rights violations.
In response, Khamenei mocked Obama’s mantra of change as merely a tactical shift. He said Washington must first change its actions—by lifting sanctions, unfreezing Iranian assets, diluting support for Israel and ceasing criticism of Iran—to show its seriousness. Behind closed doors, however, senior Iranian politicians have conceded that Obama’s overtures unsettled Khamenei and put pressure on him to justify Tehran’s continued animosity toward the United States.
The future
* Prospects for reconciliation with the United States are low while Khamenei remains in power. At the same time, any engagement policy Iran that aims to ignore or bypass Khamenei is equally unlikely to succeed.
* In both the domestic and international context, Khamenei is averse to compromise under pressure, fearful of projecting weakness and inviting greater pressure.
* Khamenei worries about opposition to his rule among top clerics in Qom, but opposition within the Revolutionary Guards would be far more dangerous for him.
* Khamenei has not appointed an heir apparent and there are no obvious successors, should he die or be removed from power. The supreme leader could be replaced with a shura (consultative) council, although the selection of a council could face many problems.
Karim Sadjadpour is an associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
and the author of “Reading Khamenei: The Worldview of Iran’s Most Powerful Leader.”
http://iranprimer.usip.org/resource/supreme-leader
====== .. an Israeli right-wing newspaper fits on Ahmadinejad ..
Magazine critique of Ahmadinejad exposes internal rifts
By DAVID ROSENBERG / THE MEDIA LINE
LAST UPDATED: 11/09/2010 13:41
Iran president accused of amassing too much power at allies' expense;
harshly worded editorial appears in Revolutionary Guards' magazine.
Ahmadinejad in Beirut, Thursday Photo: Associated Press
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who smothered his reformist opposition in the wake of last year’s elections, faces a new and potentially dangerous threat from the people and groups he once relied on as his closest allies.
The opposition to what many in Iran regard as Ahmadinejad’s increasingly centralized rule had been largely conducted behind the scenes. But it has suddenly emerging in a harshly worded editorial in the Iran Revolutionary Guards' monthly magazine Payam-e Enghelab (Message of the Revolution) on a seemingly obscure subject on the role of the country’s parliament.
RELATED:
Iran tightens internal security prior to subsidy cuts
http://www.jpost.com/IranianThreat/News/Article.aspx?id=193985
Ahmadinejad: Western 'arrogance' will topple nuke talks
http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=193868
“You have an independent president for the first time since the revolution. Ahmadinejad is undermining the leadership and this could lead to an [unraveling] of the current system," Ali Alfoneh, a resident fellow, at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, told The Media Line.
Outside of Iran, Ahmadinejad is seen as a powerful figure who is resisting Western pressure to abandon the country’s controversial nuclear program, challenging America in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon, and crushing his reformists’ opponents after he won the 2009 presidential elections. At home, however, the president’s growing power has alienated everyone from his one-time patron, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, too many in the Guards.
Ahmadinejad exposed the fissure in Iran’s ruling circles in an interview with the Iran daily. He asserted that the executive branch of government is superior to parliament and should be responsible for running the country. Parliament’s job, he said, is to support presidential rule.
“Now the executive branch has to run the country and other branches have to support it,” wrote Ahmadinejad.
Payam-e Enghelab countered with an editorial last week by accusing the president of upsetting the balance of power in Iran’s political system and of employing “Persianism” rather than “Islamism” as the ideological basis of government. This was a serious accusation in a state that disdains nationalism over religion. "Does being on top justify whatever action the government thinks is right, disregarding the law?" the magazine asked.
Parliament is the bastion of Iran’s conservative establishment and an attack on it by the president was bound to elicit a response, Alireza Nader, an international policy analyst at the RAND Corp., wrote in a commentary for the online news magazine Tehranbureau.com. They view Ahmadinejad's claim as an attempt to undermine their authority.
But for Ahmadinejad the more painful accusation is that his efforts to put presidential rule at the top of the power apex contradicted the political principles of the Islamic state as established by the Ayatollah Khomeini, the deeply revered founder of Iran’s Islamic state. Although he died in 1989, Khomieni’s philosophy officially continues to guide it. Indeed, the conservatives are known as “principalists” for their self-proclaimed strict adherence to Khomeini’s views.
Nader said the Guards are by no means all aligned against Ahmadinejad, who himself is a veteran of the organization and has vastly expanded its political power since he was first elected to office in 2005. But many in the Guards’ leadership are pleased to see the president being cut down to size, he said.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei supported Ahmadinejad in both presidential elections, but now the ayatollah fears the president has grown too strong and so he is trying to create a counter power, said Alfoneh in a telephone interview from Washington D.C...
“For the Revolutionary Guards, a policy of ‘resistance’ against the U.S. is ideal even if it entails costs, but it has to produce tangible benefits for the regime's military elite,” Nader wrote on Tehran.com. “United Nations sanctions and Iran's loss of support from key partners such as Russia have been interpreted as failures.”
The Guards’ political ascendency began during the years Iran was ruled by reformist President Mohammad Khatami. But their power may have peaked during Ahmadinejad's first term, beginning in 2005.
Meanwhile, the Iranian Green Movement, whose supporters took to the street in the summer of 2009 to protest what they alleged was a fraudulent election, isn’t a player in the power struggle, according to Alfoneh.
Yet Nader said Ahmadinejad's disregard of parliament has pushed some hardliners in the principalist faction closer together with the more moderate reformists.
The rifts have prompted Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to call for all branches of government to support the president whose government he has hailed as extremely successful.
“National unity is very important and must be strengthened with every passing day... and by that I am addressing both officials and ordinary people," Khamenei said during his recent visit to the holy city of Qom.
Kalindi O’Brien contributed to this report
http://www.jpost.com/Iranian-Threat/News/Magazine-critique-of-Ahmadinejad-exposes-internal-rifts
======
Iran’s Top 20
May 22, 2009 8:00 PM EDT
Power and public discourse in the Islamic Republic are dominated by fewer than two
dozen heavyweights, ranging from ayatollahs to entertainers (and one TV network).
1. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei - Supreme Leader
2. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - President
3. Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani - Eminence Grise
4. Mohammad Khatami - Ex-President
5. Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati - Oversight Chief
6. Ali Larijani - Majlis Speaker
7. Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari - Revolutionary Guards Commander
8. Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf - Mayor of Tehran
9. Ayatollah Abbas Vaez-Tabasi - Holy Estate Director
10. Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi - Radical Scholar
11. Seyyed Javad Shahrestani - Sistani's Envoy
12. Saeed Mortazavi - Prosecutor General of Tehran
13. Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi - Head of Judiciary
14. Mojtaba Samareh Hashemi - Campaign Manager
15. Mir Hossein Mousavi - Ex–Prime Minister
16. Mohsen Rezaei - Khamenei Adviser
Details on each inside: http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2009/05/22/iran-s-top-20.html
.. gut mutters, if we fail to settle the conflict with Iran without war balance of blame will lie with us .. yes, it takes two to tango .. yes, the nuclear weapon issue is of concern to Russia and China also .. yet, who has little echoed the undeniable right to Iran of nuclear for peaceful means as clearly as they have .. could we emphasis that statement by Iran maybe even just a bit more .. and who sits with the history of aggression on their side .. i dunno .. just one inconsequential mumble mutter .. lol ..
It was Plato who said, “He, O men, is the wisest, who like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing”
Join the InvestorsHub Community
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
