File photo of Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, taken on January 29, 2014. (khamenei.ir/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)[/caption]
Talks between Iran and the P5+1, the world powers negotiating with Iran over its nuclear program, are set to resume in Vienna today. The leader of the Iranian delegation and Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohammad Javad Zarif said recently that reaching a deal within six months was “hard but possible,” and that the two sides should act in “good faith” if the negotiations were going to be successful.
But how can the Islamic Republic of Iran be serious about negotiating in good faith when its Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, declares to a crowd of supporters that negotiations are pointless a day ahead of the talks?
It is no secret that Iran’s Supreme Leader has maintained a hardline stance on the nuclear issue for years. And it is no surprise that he conceded to the pressure of backbreaking economic sanctions and the Iranian people’s desire to resume the nuclear talks when Hassan Rouhani was elected president. Khamenei was stuck between his spinning centrifuges and a hard place: to continue with enrichment meant further international pressure—if not war—against Iran, while going back to the negotiating table meant alienating his domestic base, mostly composed of radicals and hardliners.
But Khamenei’s comments matter a great deal in a dictatorship like that of Iran, where the Supreme Leader's words are treated as law. Fifteen years ago, when the reformist government of President Mohammad Khatami was investigating the murders of a number of writers and intellectuals allegedly committed by elements within Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence, the Supreme Leader declared that such murders could not have been the work of isolated elements in the ministry and that he saw the hands of Israel and America in the killings. His remarks became the de facto guidelines for the investigators: instead of asking the suspects questions about the real crime at hand, interrogators focused on fulfilling the Ayatollah’s prophecies. In the weeks that ensued, the interrogators allegedly tortured the Intelligence Ministry officials—and some members of their families—who were suspected of having murdered the writers and intellectuals. In return, they all confessed to being double agents who had been on Israel’s and America’s payroll for years and to having carried out the murders on direct orders from Tel Aviv and Washington.
Over the past twenty years, Khamenei’s words have been translated into official state policy: as Khamenei criticized the role of humanities in Iran’s higher education system, the Ministry of Higher Education removed hundreds of humanities and social science courses from Iranian classrooms. As he questioned the country’s successful population control policies, billboards went up on every street corner encouraging couples to be more fruitful and multiply at a higher rate. And as Khamenei declared Syria the heart of resistance against Israel, his regime dedicated unprecedented resources to keeping President Bashar Al-Assad and his clan in power in Syria. There are many more examples, but one thing is clear: what Khamenei says goes.
After Rouhani’s ascent to the presidency, and with increasing domestic pressure on the regime to address the dire economic situation, Khamenei declared it was time for “heroic flexibility.” Time and again, Khamenei has tried to place himself in a position of maximum deniability should the talks fail. While he has praised the negotiating team for its loyalty to the Islamic Republic, Khamenei has repeatedly criticized the ongoing talks between Iran and the P5+1 and has repeatedly “predicted” that these talks will not be successful.
As the two sides meet once again in Vienna this week, the burden is on Iran to demonstrate good faith. After all, it is Iran that ought to show the world it is serious in resolving its nuclear crisis, particularly when its most powerful leader and commander-in-chief predicts the talks are guaranteed to fail.
All views expressed in this blog post are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, The Majalla magazine.
