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Under the veil

By Roya Hakakian

Roya Hakakian""
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Roya Hakakian: Under the Veil

Roya Hakakian on the Middle East, Iran and issues related to international relations, foreign policy and human rights.
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The most important WikiLeaks revelation on Iran is that there hardly is one. It is reassuring to learn that while the public is not privy to classified information, it’s not lagging too far behind senior officials on the subject. The secret documents tell us, for the most part, what we already know — that Arab leaders are concerned about Iran’s nuclear ambitions but want the US to be the one to do something about it, that the US Embassy in Baghdad was worried about Iran’s growing influence in Iraq, and that Tehran’s crusader-in-chief is desperate for a war with the US, as Ahmadinejad entrusted to an Arab leader: “We beat the Americans in Iraq; the final battle will be in Iran.”

The fallout from these revelations is also playing out according to the tired regional script. The majority of Arab intelligentsia is expressing shame and embarrassment. The so-called revelations are not deemed material to reflect upon, but are yet another attack on national pride, as if nothing, i.e., national interest or collective introspection, could possibly supersede it.

Ahmadinejad, too, is also playing a predictable part. To lash out against the Arab leaders who have urged Americans to attack Iran would be unwise for the man who has been preaching Pan-Islamism and vying for regional leadership. In turn, he has struck a dismissive and unperturbed note, denying the truth of the documents, calling them, as Iran has done whenever in a jam since 1979, “an American plot” to pit Iran against its neighbors.

While these sensational items have become the objects of popular attention, the truly newsworthy WikiLeaks revelation is nearly ignored. Ever since his rise to supreme leadership, Ayatollah Khamenei has been known to be unwell. But the news of his terminal leukemia speaks to a crisis of succession from which Tehran is undoubtedly reeling. It explains several befuddling events of the past few weeks. For instance, the sudden pilgrimage that the leader, hardly a traveling man, made to Qom to meet with the country’s top clergy now appears as an effort to build consensus prior to that final journey to the maker.

There was also this: Former President Rafsanjani’s son was declared banned from returning to Iran. The ban is surely a another attack against the former president who, as a founding father of the Islamic Republic, has long been eyeing the supreme office. Rafsanjani’s rivals, chiefly Revolutionary Guard higher-ups, have long been tangled in a struggle for power that has only escalated since the 2009 elections.

The Revolutionary Guard, too, is borrowing from old and tested scenarios. Nearly twenty years ago, when Ayatollah Montazeri was to take over supreme leadership after the death of the original supreme leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, his adversaries staged vicarious attacks against him by arresting his son-in-law, which became yet another step toward Montazeri’s ultimate downfall. The battle for supreme leadership is in full swing between the former president and the Guardsmen’s favorite candidate, Khamenei Junior — Mojtaba, the son of the current leader.

For this juicy morsel, we have Julian Assange to thank. 



    
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