The Question That Khamenei Faces

By Amir Taheri, GATESTONE  •  January 15, 2023

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

• 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.
• [W]hen 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.
• [T]he 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. 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. (Image source: kremlin.ru)

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.

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