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Writer's pictureMichael Julien

The Question That Khamenei Faces - by Amir Taheri for The Gatestone Institute - 15.01.23

The visit to Pyongyang was Khamenei's the Road to Damascus moment. The lesson he learned was simple: Let others idolize you and, if things turn badly, blame those who idolize you. And, if you are in a position of weakness, just appear as a nobody or play village idiot until the tide turns in your favor.


When Khamenei was forced to enter center stage last week, it was clear that his usual tactics hadn't worked.


Worse still, most of the key figures in the regime's support-base within the clergy, the military-security apparatus, and the Islamic academic and cultural elite seemed to be either hedging their bets or expressing some sympathy for the protesters.


The strongest probability today is that the Khomeinist system could be heading for the cabinet of curiosities.


These are tough days for the "Supreme Guide" of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. For the first time in more than three decades, he seems unable to do a Houdini number by getting out of a tight spot that events and his own mistakes have placed him in.


For more than three decades, whenever his rule was seriously challenged, his tactic was to go into purdah for a while letting things sort themselves out or, if action were needed, let others to do the dirty work. And when it became clear that things weren't going to sort themselves out, he adopted the tactic he called "heroic flexibility," a political version of the Parson's position in reverse.


Over the years, he did his Houdini number during a long power struggle with his foe-cum-friend Ayatollah Ali-Akbar Rafsanjani, and ended up winning. During the contested presidential election that produced the so-called "Green Movement" he let his security men kill protesters, impose house-arrest on some protest leaders and crush the student uprising.


In foreign affairs, he let the so-called "reformist" faction, first under Hojat al-Islam Muhammad Khatami and then led by Hojat al-Islam Hassan Rouhani, accept every humiliation to get a deal with the US and deceive the Europeans into regarding the Islamic Republic as a normal state while he whispered his opposition to the deal made. If things turned out well, he would take the credit; if not he would blame others.


All along, he played both the ultimate decision-maker and the top critic of the regime he headed. Frequently, he mused about "the problems from which our heroic Islamic nation suffers", blaming unnamed officials for mounting failures across the board.


All along, his model was North Korean leader Kim Il-sung whom he had met and become an admirer of during a state visit that seems to have reshaped his world view.


In his memoirs, Ayatollah Nateq-Nuri, who had accompanied Khamenei during the state visit to Pyongyang, relates how the future Supreme Guide "fell head and heels for the North Korean 'Great Helmsman'".


The visit to Pyongyang was Khamenei's the Road to Damascus moment. The lesson he learned was simple: Let others idolize you and, if things turn badly, blame those who idolize you. And, if you are in a position of weakness, just appear as a nobody or play village idiot until the tide turns in your favor.


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Amir Taheri was the executive editor-in-chief of the daily Kayhan in Iran from 1972 to 1979. He has worked at or written for innumerable publications, published eleven books, and has been a columnist for Asharq Al-Awsat since 1987.


This article was originally published by Asharq al-Awsat and is reprinted by kind permission of the author.


© 2023 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

The "Supreme Guide" of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (pictured). (Image source: kremlin.ru)






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