The twilight of Ali Khamenei
If Mr Khamenei had died on October 6, 2023, he would be remembered as a successful, history-bending revolutionary. But the October 7 war caught the cleric unprepared, utterly blind to the chain reaction that militant Palestinians were about to unleash.
When the Israelis showed that the rules of the game had changed, Mr Khamenei stayed with his old playbook. Others in Iran realised they lacked firepower. Voices within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the supreme leaders’ praetorians, advocated obtaining nuclear arms – quickly. Mr Khamenei persisted with his strategy of gradually expanding nuclear infrastructure. On two occasions before the 12-Day War, Iran lobbed missiles toward Israel, assuming Tehran’s ballistic missile capacity could still check Israeli behaviour. It didn’t.
Now when Mr Khamenei pronounces on critical issues, VIPs he once humbled contradict him. On November 3, the supreme leader commemorated the takeover of the US embassy. “The conflict between the Islamic Republic and the US isn’t a difference in tactics. It isn’t an incidental disagreement. It’s an inherent difference,” the cleric asserted. “Cooperation with Iran isn’t compatible with cooperating and helping the accursed Zionist regime.”
Six days later, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi stressed, “Whenever the Americans are prepared for negotiations grounded in equality and shared interests, such talks could become possible.”
Shortly after that, Ali Larijani, the secretary to the Supreme National Security Council — a talented layman whom Mr Khamenei had once cast out of his inner circle — decided to rewrite history and the revolution’s categorical imperative: “Iran’s leaders did not have an inherent hostility toward the West; rather, it was the West’s political and security behaviour that led to a crisis of cooperation.” Many in Tehran’s corridors of power, obviously scared of another American or Israeli attack, dangle offers of diplomatic mediation.
Mr Khamenei and his diplomats have often played a subtle game for the benefit of Westerners. The theocrat would express his distrust of the Americans, caution his emissaries to be vigilant, but then obliquely defend their efforts. The cleric’s diplomats would voyage forth, brandishing their leader’s scepticism as a means of extracting concessions from foreigners. This tactic often worked, especially with Europeans and American officials during Barack Obama’s presidency. Today, the defiance of Mr Khamenei appears neither scripted nor rehearsed.
Nor are the cleric’s grudges driving the system. After the contested, regime-shaking presidential election of 2009, one candidate, Mehdi Karrubi, a brash, first-generation revolutionary, was consigned to house arrest that lasted 14 years. Mr Karrubi, who was released in March, recently blasted his tormentor. “Khamenei claimed insight, but destroyed the economy, culture, security and ethics, and what you see today is the product of that wrong approach.” In response, Mr Karrubi is neither punished nor censured. Many within the regime surely agree with him.
Even with a diminished supreme leader, the regime is making decisions and executing plans. A division of labour seems to be taking place. Mr Larijani, one of Iran’s more seasoned and sinister officials, is managing the national security portfolio and sending mixed signals, probably to lull Westerners into another round of protracted negotiations.
The more critical internal security functions are being overseen by the notorious head of the judiciary, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, who has urged prosecutors to hurry up and punish the Zionist collaborators hiding within the Islamic Republic.
President Masoud Pezeshkian and the administrative state are attempting to sort out Iran’s vast economic and ecological troubles. The IRGC, the speaker of the parliament, Mohammad Ghalibaf, and an entire range of informal actors in religious foundations and seminaries also have their say. Collective leadership rarely works, as it takes too long to build a consensus. But for now the system holds.
In a paradoxical way, Mr Khamenei’s displacement stems from his success. The Islamist cadre are too invested in the revolution that he moulded to forfeit their inheritance. Mr Khamenei’s mission will continue even as he fades. In a revealing article, Serat News, a publication close to hard line clerical and security networks, stressed, “The legitimacy of leadership derives not simply from personal popularity but also from legal, historical, religious and functional ties to the nation.” So “even if something were to happen to him [Mr Khamenei] today – in the worst possible scenario – the Islamic Republic system can maintain its structure, agenda and revolutionary spirit.”
Mr Khamenei may have failed in the Middle East, but he has succeeded at home: He replicated himself. And that success has proved his undoing. Israel’s military victories since October 7 and Donald Trump’s one-day bombing raid have made the supreme leader embarrassingly redundant. He, not his faithful functionaries, needs to take the blame.
Mr Gerecht is a resident scholar at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Mr Takeyh is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
The Wall St Journal
Despotic regimes have their own way of holding rulers accountable. Show trials and trumped-up corruption charges can bring down leaders who have stumbled. Predatory regimes can also offer some grace to failed icons. The latter is the current predicament of Iran’s 86-year-old supreme leader, Ali Khamenei. The 12-Day War in June neutered the mullah who had dominated much of the Middle East. With this devastating reversal, his minions are now effectively taking over.