There’s a Reason They Call Him the “Supreme” Leader
Matt Duss makes the excellent point that we could probably do with less close-reading of Iranian political developments:
Yesterday, the New York Times reported that one of former Iranian president — and current presidential candidate — Mohamed Khatami’s most prominent backers, Gholamhossein Karbaschi, switched to support one of Khatami’s rivals, Mehdi Kharroubi. Both candidates are considered reformers, and have been critical of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Today the Washington Post reports that another critic of Ahamedinejad, former prime minister Mir Hossein Mousavi has also announced his candidacy. But while it’s fair to see all of this as evidence of popular discontent with Ahmadinejad’s poor stewardship of the economy, as always it’s unclear what, if anything, any of this says about Iranian supreme leader Khamenei’s orientation toward rapprochement with the U.S., which is the key consideration.
As Duss says, whatever relevance this may have to purely domestic Iranian issues, Americans need to remember that “Regardless of which leaders and factions are up or down at any given moment, Ayatollah Khamenei is always up.” This was a point beloved of the right-wing back during the Khatami era as it was seen to undermine the case for engagement. But the real case for engagement isn’t based on assessing Iranian personalities, it’s a calculation of strategic interests. And that means engaging with the guy calling the shots—Khamenei. It may be impossible to reach a rapprochement, perhaps he doesn’t want one. But it’s worth trying. And that means trying in good faith, which means trying with the man in charge, not trying to think of clever ways to bypass him.
31 Responses to “There’s a Reason They Call Him the “Supreme” Leader”
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March 11th, 2009 at 9:09 pm
The Farsi language doesn’t have a word for “rapprochement.”
Ha Ha! Gotcha!!!
March 11th, 2009 at 9:10 pm
Neither, of course, does English, really.
Will people get the joke?
March 11th, 2009 at 9:18 pm
I can’t think of a graceful way to take back the “axis of evil” designation publicly, but that would be a start.
March 11th, 2009 at 9:22 pm
Re “And that means engaging with the guy calling the shots—Khamenei”
———–
7.62 x 39 or 7.62 NATO?
“3 centimeters down and 1 to the left”
March 11th, 2009 at 9:29 pm
Will people get the joke?
One of the pleasures of reading the comments thread on this blog is that they will, and do.
March 11th, 2009 at 9:40 pm
“calculation of strategic interests:
Our government can’t do that calculation.
When you look at the broad sweep of history, it is apparent that this is often the case.
March 11th, 2009 at 10:12 pm
Ryan S:
Separately from your joke, let me point out: It doesn’t make sense to write “The Farsi language”. Would you write “The Deutsch language” or “The español language” ? That would look mighty odd. The correct phrasing if you’re writing in ordinary english is “The Persian language”.
March 11th, 2009 at 10:16 pm
He might be assuming not everyone is aware that Farsi is a language, though within the demographic of this blog, that may be unlikely. Midunam.
March 11th, 2009 at 10:31 pm
He might also be assuming not everyone is a pedant, but within the readership of this blog etc etc..
March 12th, 2009 at 12:54 am
When Khamenei dies, and is replaced by someone called Khimenai, Khemenei or Khumenei to keep the vowel shift thing going, do you think he’ll have that photo turned into a picture and placed on his wall, Colbert-style?
March 12th, 2009 at 6:18 am
Step one for the US should be to engage with Iran at every possible level and that as soon as possible.
The US government should be throwing invitations and visas and scholarships at Iranian students and athletes and trade groups and businessmen and mullahs and yes the Supreme Leader.
Hell, Congress should declare an Iran appreciation day.
But our problem is that Iran will never ever give up their rights to a nuclear program and there is nothing the US or Europe can give them to convince them otherwise.
Forgetting our past aggression against Iran (not to mention the entire MidEast and Arabian peninsula), just going forward, should any sane Iranian EVER trust Obama and the US government with your nation’s future and well being?
Just asking the question is absurd.
And yet that is what we demand of Iran.
No Matt, the difficulty is not who we do or do not talk to in Iran and yours simply contributes to the problem you would decry.
The problem is that we start from a position that is so unfair, so irrational, so crazed that there is no ground for fair compromise.
The only question is how much more damage to US interests will we suffer in support of Zionist ambitions?
March 12th, 2009 at 6:57 am
JT,
The sane Iranians (a hypothetical if ever there was one) ought to be considering any method they can devise of exiting Iran ASAP. Demographic collapse and oil at 20% value to its (approaching their reserves end by 2010) 2008 peak and dropping, mix in with an extended global economic slowdown and you’ve got a big 12th Imam Mess.
March 12th, 2009 at 7:40 am
tao9…
And I’m sure that you think the US should reinstate a Shah in another CIA coup.
What does demographic collapse even mean? Which Iranian demographic is collapsing?
And yes, all the oil economies are suffering, the poorest the most (I really never understand how the pain of other peoples becomes a source of glee to any but the insane and the Zionists).
All of your points argue for Iranian nuclear power both to extend their chief source of foreign exchange and to free themselves from American hegemony in their own neighborhood.
March 12th, 2009 at 7:47 am
Actually, “they” don’t call him the Supreme Leader (assuming by “they”, Matt is referring to Iranians). They just call him “the leader”. The supreme bit is just added by translators for whatever reason.
March 12th, 2009 at 8:06 am
It remains to be seen whether Ahmadinejad, Khatami, Kharroubi, or Mousavi will be the big enchilada, but Khamenei is ultimately the supreme burrito supreme.
As for tao9’s “hypothetical” sane Iranians, I’ll just say that I’ve met a number of them who seemed perfectly sane — or, at least, in no worse mental health than the average person (which is, like the average person’s physical health, frequently somewhat short of perfect, including my own). Admittedly, I’ve never met any sane Iranians in Iran, considering that I’ve never been in Iran. Actually, I’ve never met an Iranian who wasn’t mostly sane. (Yes, one of the Iranians was a biophysicist who did research on Brownian ratchets, but don’t let the name fool you: nothing about them violated the second law of thermodynamics, so it was all perfectly sane research — although I wish he would have explained that to me the first time, rather than pinning me to the floor and threatening to cut my throat with a meat cleaver unless I admitted that his research was sane.)
March 12th, 2009 at 8:13 am
He’s not called supreme and he isn’t. No leader can be entirely immune from public opinion without keeping a much tighter grip on it than they do in Iran. That’s why Iranian politics and politcial factions matter to America because the elected government can choose to tighten or relax restrictions to a fair degree. Moves towards freedom made under Khatami increased the pressure on Khameini to decrease Iran’s international isolation. Ahmedinijad has reversed those moves and Iran has become more internationally isolated (Bush played a rolein that but now that we’ve got our house in order…) It does matter to America who wins the Iranian elections.
March 12th, 2009 at 8:51 am
“now that we’ve got our house in order…”
That remains to be seen.
Despite Clinton’s offer to the Iranians to talk about Afghanistan, the rhetoric from the Obama administration remains “Bush Lite” – and that’s going no where with the Iranians.
March 12th, 2009 at 9:20 am
Yes he is Supreme which like our Court simply means he is the highest authority in Iran. Of course he neither has nor claims dictatorial powers.
While the Iranian constitution and law do designate the position as “Leader” nonetheless within Iran he is also sometimes referred to as Supreme Leader as a sort of honorific.
There are several variants, for example Leader of the Revolution.
March 12th, 2009 at 9:40 am
Tao,
Better this kind of ‘demographic collapse’ than the demographic overshoot that people were worried about a few years back. And oil prices, _in the long run_, have nowhere to go but up. The supply is decreasing, and the demand is probably going to remain stable at the very least, in the long run.
Pseudonymous in NC,
WHile I don’t speak Persian, my understanding is that “Khamenei” and “Khomeini” are pronounced entirely differently.
March 12th, 2009 at 9:50 am
Khamenei is pronounced KHAH-meh-neh-ee. The transliteration sometimes includes an apostrophe between e and i to call attention to this point.
March 12th, 2009 at 10:05 am
Brian,
Thanks. Is the “Kh” sound like a Russian “Kh” (e.g. “Khrushchev”, or the sound that Castilian Spanish represents with ‘J’) or more like a South Asian “Kh” (e.g. “Rekha”, an aspirated ‘K’)?
March 12th, 2009 at 10:56 am
And then, magically, the same right wing declares Khatami’s replacement Ahmadinejad the new Hitler, with complete dictatorial control over domestic and foreign policy.
March 12th, 2009 at 1:28 pm
Mir Hossein Mousavi announcing his candidacy makes the race extremely interesting.
Folks should know that back in the 80’s. Mr Mousavi, then the prime minister, had had a massive conflicts with the current supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei. The spar with Ayatollah Khamenei resulted in him resigning from his job – the late Ayatollah Khomeini, however, didn’t accept his resignation and publicly crticized Ayatollah Khamenei.
The point of this post is that Mir Hossein Mousavi and Ayatollah Khamenei are arch enemies.
March 12th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
I understand Ryan was joking regarding the word rapprochement. In Farsi, we say: “Ravabeteh Hasaneh.”
The US can start Ravebteh Hasaneh by engaing in respectful dialog as opposed to: “I sit down with Iranian officials at the time of my choosing.” That’s pure unadulterated bullcrap stated by Obama. Does Obama really think Ayatollah Khamenei gives rat’s ass about Obama’s time of choosing?
Lose the attitude and carrot/stick crap, that’d be a good start.
March 12th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
Hector #21,
The “kh” sound in Khamenei like neither of those sounds. It’s like arabic “kh”. It comes from the back of your throat. And Brian #20 is right: one principal difference from “Khomeini” is that the current guy’s name has stress on the first syllable.
Pseudonymous #10,
Heh heh, that was funny.
March 12th, 2009 at 3:46 pm
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March 13th, 2009 at 8:01 am
“Matt Duss makes the excellent point”
A link to wherever he made this point would be helpful, Matt.
March 22nd, 2009 at 10:01 pm
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March 22nd, 2009 at 10:03 pm
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March 22nd, 2009 at 10:20 pm
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