At five in the afternoon, Cairo time (32).. Khamenei: A Supreme Leader in the Eye of the Storm (2/2)

Yesterday, we explained how Ali Khamenei rose to the position of Supreme Leader of the Iranian Revolution, following the replacement of the fatwa of Wilayat al-Faqih with the fatwa of Wilayat al-Mujtahid.

We also addressed the relationship between clerical rule in Tehran and Washington, explaining how it has oscillated between open confrontation and covert cooperation, and we presented Iraq as a model of that policy.

Today, we examine Khamenei’s role in particular in all of these files, the manner of his cooperation with the Americans in Afghanistan, and his attempts to build Shiite influence in the region through organizations such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and certain Palestinian organizations in the occupied territories.

Khamenei’s Role

Khamenei played the largest role in what occurred in Iraq. This was exposed by secret correspondence that was previously revealed between U.S. President Barack Obama and Khamenei, which showed the extent of political courtship and close friendship between the two men.

The first to disclose this correspondence was The Wall Street Journal, citing an Iranian diplomatic source who refused to reveal his identity. The source indicated that Ayatollah Khamenei had sent a letter to Obama conveying his respects. That letter represented a somewhat delayed response to the American president’s message sent in October 2014 regarding cooperation in combating “terrorism,” contingent upon reaching an agreement on Tehran’s nuclear program.

This became evident during Obama’s subsequent visit to Saudi Arabia to offer condolences on the death of King Abdullah, when he urged the Saudis to reach an understanding with Iran. From that date (2016), a new phase of Saudi-Iranian understandings began, whose chapters are still unfolding to this day.

Afghanistan

Those who believe that American-Iranian cooperation began shortly before or during the invasion of Iraq are mistaken. Iranian-American relations passed through many stages, oscillating between covert cooperation and declared hostility.

During Washington’s war on terrorism in Afghanistan, the United States needed Iran’s assistance in the early stages of the war. Therefore, it sought dialogue with Tehran through all possible means, especially on the security level, with Britain playing the role of mediator in that dialogue.

Thus, despite Iran’s public condemnation of the American invasion of Afghanistan, voiced by Khamenei himself—“We condemn terrorism in all its forms, oppose the American campaign on Afghanistan, and reject entering into any alliance led by America”—Iran nevertheless provided field support to the United States. In October 2001, it agreed to contribute to the rescue of any American forces that encountered problems in the region. It also allowed the United States to use one of its ports to ship wheat to the war zones in Afghanistan and participated in military support for the Northern Alliance forces until they took control of Kabul.

Lebanon

The establishment of the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979 under Khomeini’s leadership was a powerful catalyst for the growth of Hezbollah, due to the sectarian and political ties between it and the new leaders in Tehran. Although Hezbollah’s organizational presence in Lebanon is dated to 1982, its intellectual and ideological foundations predate that year. This intellectual environment was laid by the late scholar Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah through his scholarly activity in southern Lebanon.

The relationship between Hezbollah and Khamenei intertwines political and religious dimensions. Some Lebanese Shiites who constitute Hezbollah’s cadres have deep spiritual ties to Iranian religious authorities and regard Khamenei as their highest religious reference. The Secretary-General of Hezbollah is always referred to as “the legitimate representative of Ayatollah Khamenei.”

The party does not deny its close relationship with Iran, nor that it receives all political and financial support directly from Khamenei. This clearly and unequivocally indicates that the party is nothing more than an Iranian entity on Lebanese soil. Iran benefited greatly from it: on one hand, it managed to improve its image in Sunni society after the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel, following the severe deterioration of its image during its long war with Saddam Hussein; on the other hand, it appeared as a country confronting Israel and Washington.

Ultimately, Hezbollah was the winning card in Iran’s hand, which it could use whenever it wished to pressure America and Israel—before it has now become a major burden on the Lebanese state, threatening its survival and stability.

The Palestine Card

After the victory of the Iranian Revolution, the new regime in Tehran, under Khomeini’s patronage, hastened to raise the banner of the Palestinian cause and handed over the keys of the Israeli embassy in Tehran to the late Yasser Arafat, transforming it into the embassy of the State of Palestine.

The clerical regime realized that the gateway of the Palestinian cause would secure a safe passage into the Arab interior. It employed “political taqiyya” to ensure the success of this deception, which was swallowed by Arab peoples hungry for victories, even if they were merely slogans.

Tehran was never interested in resolving the Palestinian issue, because doing so would deprive it of this tool that powerfully qualifies it to intervene in Arab affairs. It repeatedly rejected any Arab initiative aimed at ending the suffering of the Palestinian people and establishing their independent state with Jerusalem as its capital, as well as all initiatives seeking to heal the Palestinian rift and achieve internal unity.

The evidence of this is abundant and may warrant a separate article, especially regarding Egyptian efforts to unify the Palestinian internal front around a single leadership and a common political and struggle program. These efforts began in 1998 under the late Major General Omar Suleiman and were shattered against the rock of Iranian rejection in 2009, when Hamas refused to sign the final draft produced by the Palestinian-Palestinian dialogue held over several rounds in Cairo, claiming that it rejected placing its hands in those of Mahmoud Abbas “Abu Mazen.”

Iran’s pursuit of keeping the Palestinian issue unresolved lies in its persistent attempt to maintain the rift among Palestinians themselves, through its full support of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad for decades, and by preventing the two rival Palestinian factions, Fatah and Hamas, from reaching a national consensus that would unify their stance against the occupier.

The Iranian regime possesses only two main cards to intervene in Arab affairs: one is the claim of defending Shiite minorities in the Arab world, while it persecutes Sunnis at home for ethnic reasons; the other is the Palestinian cause, whose resolution it prefers to obstruct in order to guarantee the continuation of its permanent intervention in Arab affairs.

Iran and the Nightmare of the Arab Spring

The famous sermon delivered by Khamenei in Arabic on Friday, January 28, 2011, was a clear message to the Muslim Brotherhood, who were occupying the square at the time.

Through that sermon, Khamenei sought to delude the Iranian street into believing that he and his regime enjoyed broad popularity in the Arab world, enabling them to influence the events unfolding at the time. From the very first moment of the outbreak of what came to be known as the Arab Spring revolutions, the Iranian regime claimed that those revolutions were inspired by the Iranian experience of 1979.

The official Iranian media began portraying the Arab revolutions positively, with the exception of the Syrian revolution, due to its alliance with the Syrian regime at the time. Concurrently, it began promoting Ayatollah Khamenei as the imam of these revolutions, thereby transforming Iran from a republic into an imamate, with Khamenei becoming the leader of Muslims worldwide.

In his attempt to falsify facts, Khamenei turned to his ally and “the Great Satan,” the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood group. No one can forget the era of Iranian–Brotherhood rapprochement during Mohamed Morsi’s rule in Egypt, the increase in diplomatic representation, and the cooperation that extended to bringing in the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard at the time, Qassem Soleimani, to establish a Brotherhood-style revolutionary guard modeled on the Iranian one, to confront the group’s enemies in Egypt, foremost among them the army and police.

The illusions of Ali Khamenei regarding leadership of the region are what have led Iran to this predicament. Trump’s recent threat demanding his departure does not come out of nowhere. There is documented information from inside and outside Iran confirming the end of Khamenei’s role and the end of “clerical rule,” not only in Iran but also the end of all its arms in the region. Tomorrow is not far for those who wait.

Paris: 5:00 p.m., Cairo time.