NEW YORK TIMES
Enigmatic Leader of Iran Backs Overture, for Now
Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader, via Associated Press
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei spoke at a meeting of Revolutionary Guards commanders in a photo released by his office last week.
By THOMAS ERDBRINK
Published: September 23, 2013 Comment
TEHRAN — This is Hassan Rouhani’s moment. The toast of the United Nations, the new Iranian president is busy granting interviews to select audiences and possibly cramming in a meeting with President Obama — the first such high-level get-together since the 1979 revolution. But when he stands before the world to speak on Tuesday, he will do so as the loyal representative of Iran’s supreme leader, the ultimate authority behind the country’s recent diplomatic charm offensive.
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Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
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Since his election in June, Mr. Rouhani has made no secret of his wish to reach an accord with the West on Iran’s nuclear program — and no secret that the only reason he can reach out so conspicuously is that he has the support, for now anyway, of one man, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader.
“Rouhani can only attempt to have direct talks because the supreme leader has agreed to it; otherwise, Rouhani would not be in New York now,” said Hamid-Reza Taraghi, an insider who is one of the few people trusted to interpret for the public the supreme leader’s sermons and speeches. “The president and his team enter any talks only under the leader’s direct command.”
An enigmatic and cunning man, Ayatollah Khamenei, 74, is the one who gave Mr. Rouhani the authority to pursue a deal with the United States, top aides to Mr. Rouhani and outside experts say, and could just as easily cut off support — as he has done to some Iranian leaders before, including Mr. Rouhani.
Ayatollah Khamenei sees himself as a sort of referee of Iran’s complex political system, sitting in judgment of the politicians he anoints to lead the country in what are often sharply different directions. In 1997, for example, he blessed the reformist candidacy of Mohammad Khatami, who relaxed some social restrictions and allowed more press freedom.
But he allowed the hard-liners to undermine Mr. Khatami’s presidency, and in 2005 he pinwheeled to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the strident nationalist hard-liner, who denied the Holocaust and antagonized the West for much of his eight years in office.
This year, in a surprise to almost all Iran watchers, Ayatollah Khamenei has seemed to get behind Mr. Rouhani’s diplomatic push, talking in somewhat opaque but nevertheless conciliatory terms of “heroic flexibility.” And on Monday, in another gesture of support for Mr. Rouhani, Iran released 80 political prisoners. But the question for many here is, how much room will the supreme leader allow for diplomacy before pulling the rug out from under Mr. Rouhani?
This is not the first go-round for Ayatollah Khamenei and Mr. Rouhani, himself something of a prodigy who was once the darling of the clerics who founded the Islamic republic. In 2003 Mr. Rouhani, then the chief nuclear negotiator, persuaded Ayatollah Khamenei to suspend uranium enrichment for several months in hopes of reaching a nuclear deal. But the negotiations broke down, and Mr. Rouhani was banished from the circles of power before being resurrected this spring.
From Ayatollah Khamenei’s perspective, experts say, it makes perfect sense to stand back and allow Mr. Rouhani to conduct talks with the country’s main adversary.
“Everybody understands that Supreme Leader Khamenei is in a win-win situation.” said Mojtaba Mousavi, an Iranian political commentator who is often briefed by officials close to the leader. He explained that if talks lead to the reduction or elimination of the economic sanctions that have damaged Iran’s economy, Ayatollah Khamenei will get the credit for approving the new negotiating strategy.
But Ayatollah Khamenei can also take the credit if the talks should collapse. “If talks fail to reach any results, he will be praised for having proved his warnings over the dishonesty by the West towards Iran,” said Mr. Mousavi. “In that case his doubts will be proved once again.”
Experts here say that Ayatollah Khamenei, who was appointed supreme leader in 1989, is interested in testing the flexibility of the United States in negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program, which it says is for peaceful uses but the West says is a cover for developing nuclear weapons.
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