Iran's Supreme Leader & the Poison chalice
When the founder of the Islamic Republic and its spiritual leader Ayatollah Khomeini finally had to accept a UN arranged cease-fire between Iran and Iraq in July 1988, he compared the decision and the acceptance of the cease-fire terms as being equivalent to drinking “a poisoned chalice.” After eight years of insisting on Saddam Hussein's removal as a condition for ending the Iran- Iraq war, Ayatollah Khomeini had to accept the terms that not only kept Saddam Hussein in power, but also came at an enormous cost to Iranian economy and its international status.
Now tensions over Iran's nuclear ambition are taking the country toward a major crisis point. Iranian Revolutionary Guards have threatened to close the strategic Strait of Hormuz. In response, the United States sent a blunt warning to the Supreme leader of Iran Ayatollah Khamenei that such an action will result in serious consequences for Iran. This comes on the heal of the assassination of an Iranian nuclear scientist by a sophisticated bomb attached to his car, marking the seventh attempts of its kind that point to the involvement of Israeli agents. The assassination comes after a major explosion at an Iranian missile compound that killed a senior Revolutionary Guards commander and dozens of people in the base. Now a radical paper in Tehran has issued a statement calling for retaliation in kind. Combined with the imposition of tough sanctions, it is not an exaggeration to conclude that a dirty war has started with Iran that carries potentials for further military escalation in the Persian Gulf.
The Supreme Leader of Iran Ayatollah Khamenei finds himself cornered into the same position as his predecessor the late Ayatollah Khomeini in 1988.This is the most serious challenge facing Khamenei since he was selected as a Supreme Leader in 1989. While his Revolutionary Guards commanders issue blunt warnings that they will not allow U.S. ships to return to the Persian Gulf, and the United States insisting that such action will not be tolerated leaves Khamenei in a no win position since it Iran is no match for the U.S. Fifth Fleet. Khamenei and his Revolutionary Guards people know this, but the question is whether they are capable of accepting a compromise solution at this late stage, and find a respectable exit when it is hard to couch it in anything but a defeat for Iran.
My reading of the situation is that the Iranian leadership realizes that they have pushed the country into a corner, but there is no consensus on how they can get out of it without endangering the credibility of the regime. Perhaps they can borrow a chapter from their own history, and allow the Iranian parliament to come up with a solution similar to how Ayatollah Khomeini started the process of negotiation for the release of American hostages in April 1980.
In any case, history may repeat itself here, and Khamenei has no choice but to drink from the poison chalice. As Gary Sick aptly stated in his latest opinion piece, "when two important countries appear to be goading each other into a dangerous and meaningless war, it can be useful to take a deep breath, lay the rhetoric aside for a moment, and go back to basics."
Now tensions over Iran's nuclear ambition are taking the country toward a major crisis point. Iranian Revolutionary Guards have threatened to close the strategic Strait of Hormuz. In response, the United States sent a blunt warning to the Supreme leader of Iran Ayatollah Khamenei that such an action will result in serious consequences for Iran. This comes on the heal of the assassination of an Iranian nuclear scientist by a sophisticated bomb attached to his car, marking the seventh attempts of its kind that point to the involvement of Israeli agents. The assassination comes after a major explosion at an Iranian missile compound that killed a senior Revolutionary Guards commander and dozens of people in the base. Now a radical paper in Tehran has issued a statement calling for retaliation in kind. Combined with the imposition of tough sanctions, it is not an exaggeration to conclude that a dirty war has started with Iran that carries potentials for further military escalation in the Persian Gulf.
The Supreme Leader of Iran Ayatollah Khamenei finds himself cornered into the same position as his predecessor the late Ayatollah Khomeini in 1988.This is the most serious challenge facing Khamenei since he was selected as a Supreme Leader in 1989. While his Revolutionary Guards commanders issue blunt warnings that they will not allow U.S. ships to return to the Persian Gulf, and the United States insisting that such action will not be tolerated leaves Khamenei in a no win position since it Iran is no match for the U.S. Fifth Fleet. Khamenei and his Revolutionary Guards people know this, but the question is whether they are capable of accepting a compromise solution at this late stage, and find a respectable exit when it is hard to couch it in anything but a defeat for Iran.
My reading of the situation is that the Iranian leadership realizes that they have pushed the country into a corner, but there is no consensus on how they can get out of it without endangering the credibility of the regime. Perhaps they can borrow a chapter from their own history, and allow the Iranian parliament to come up with a solution similar to how Ayatollah Khomeini started the process of negotiation for the release of American hostages in April 1980.
In any case, history may repeat itself here, and Khamenei has no choice but to drink from the poison chalice. As Gary Sick aptly stated in his latest opinion piece, "when two important countries appear to be goading each other into a dangerous and meaningless war, it can be useful to take a deep breath, lay the rhetoric aside for a moment, and go back to basics."
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