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Not an easy mullah to bargain with - -

By Amir Taheri

April 8, 2009

PERHAPS President Oba ma's most significant deci sion in reaching out to Iran is to seek direct contact with Ali Khamenei, the cleric who holds the position of "supreme guide."

Obama's predecessors always tried to circumvent the "supreme guide" by establishing contact with other power brokers in Tehran.

Yet Obama's choice may appear judicious at first glance: In the Khomeinist system, real power rests with the "supreme guide." But dealing directly with Khamenei may prove problematic for two reasons.

The first is that relations with the United States is the key issue in Iran's domestic politics. Rival factions know that whoever achieves normalization would have an edge against others.

Khamenei, however, stands above factions -- and so does not feel the same urgency, does not have the same incentive to improve relations. He may adopt a harder line to highlight his credentials as the man who humbled the "Great Satan."

Also, it would be harder for Khamenei to offer the painful concessions without which no US president, not even the sympathetic Obama, could declare the Iranian regime a friend. Matters are complicated further by what looks like a tide of anger against Khamenei, whose pictures were burned by protesting students in Tehran the other day.

The second problem is Khamenei himself.

Before becoming "supreme guide," Khamenei acted as Islamic Republic president for eight years. But the office was then a ceremonial position; Khamenei has had little experience in negotiations and even less contact with the outside world.

The only European state he visited was Yugoslavia, in 1989, where he forged a friendship with Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic.

He also visited two black African states, with disastrous results. In Mozambique, he quarrelled with President Samora Machel because the latter lived in a "colonial palace unfit for a revolutionary leader." In Zimbabwe, he had an altercation with Robert Mugabe because Mugabe refused to exclude women from a dinner in his honor. Khamenei ended up dining alone in his hotel room before flying out, cutting short his visit.

In 1992, the Criminal Court in Berlin, Germany, issued an international arrest warrant against Khamenei and three other top Khomeinist officials on charges of involvement in the murder of four Iranian Kurdish exiles. That put an end to all thought of foreign travel for Khamenei.

Throughout his term as "supreme guide," Khamenei has met only one Western leader: President Kurt Waldheim of Austria -- and then only because of the man's past as a Nazi officer in World War II.

Khamenei has lived in a cocoon for more than 20 years. He can't travel abroad, even on pilgrimages to Islamic and Shiite centers in Saudi Arabia and Iraq. With the exception of rare trips to the provinces, he seldom leaves his palace in Tehran.

His entourage makes every effort to limit access to him. Bombarded by flattery and adulation, it is unlikely that he has not been affected by the cult of personality built around him. Poets compose some 500 odes a year in his praise; preachers devote sermons to his imaginary miracles. His portraits are everywhere, and his image is carved in mountains and grown as forests visible from the air. People write begging for pieces of his turban or samples of his spit as cure for a range of ailments. The official news agency reports that, in Shiraz, flowers bloomed weeks early, because of a visit by the "supreme guide."

For years, Khamenei has been reported to be in declining health, but no specific ailment is suggested. What is certain is that he needs long hours of rest and drops out of public view for weeks. A loner, he seems to enjoy his solitude, reading poetry, playing the sitar, watching satellite TV and improving his English.

The "supreme guide" plays his hand close to his chest on major issues. No one knows with certainty what he thinks on any of the subjects that arouse passion and/or concern in Iran. He seldom issues written orders and his comments on official reports are deliberately vague. He's reputed to be easily angered and to nurse chagrin for years. Those who know him well claim that he never forgets or forgives.

Charming Khamenei into making a deal with the "Great Satan" could prove a challenge for Obama.

Amir Taheri's new book is "The Persian Night: Iran Under the Khomeinist Revolution."



    
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