Ayatollah Khamenei may end up saving President Barack Obama and Israel from a “bad deal” because of a reported terminal cancer and scramble for power by hard-liners anxious to replace him.
TheJewishPress.com reported here in March that Iran may have faked events to show that Khamenei had not died. Reports of his death were premature, but it increasingly clear that the leader of the Islamic State has terminal cancer.
Iran’s regime-controlled news agencies recently have carried fewer articles highlighting Khamenei’s speeches, and the London Telegraph reported this week he has undergone several operations for prostate cancer,
Several reports, which Iran will probably never confirm, say that he has only a few months to live, which would explain why senior Iranian hard-liners are busy campaigning against a deal with the United States and the other P5+1 powers over its nuclear program.
Preaching compromise is dangerous to one’s health in Iran.
Hassan Rowhani controls Iranian policies by virtue of being president but is subservient to the Ayatollah, whose replacement may have already have been engineered with the jockeying by Sadeq Larijani, whose brother Ali is Iran’s senior negotiator with the Western powers.
If Khamenei dies, the Islamic Assembly of Experts, so they call themselves, will chose his replacement.
Lo and Behold, a hard-line ally of Khamenei named Mohammed Yazdi was named to the Assembly in March, giving Larijani more solid support since he is protégé of Khamenei.
Sadeq Larijani heads Iran’s judiciary and has begun an investigation of those who are alleging that Khamenei is corrupt.
And who is behind the allegations? None other than a contender to replace Khamenei, Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, an ally of former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjan. Remember him? He is a moderate, keeping in mind that everything is relative.
With Larijani set to take over, and a deal supposed to be signed in two weeks, statements from Iranian officials that the “deadline” may be extended are sounding more reasonable and not just rhetoric.
If Larijani wants to prove to the Assembly that he can be trusted to not let President Barack Obama get away with a deal that could actually force Iran into a situation that would endanger Iran’s nuclear weapons program, June 30 is going to be marked as nothing more than the end of the month, and the same night be said for July 31.
Larijani might want to bury the deal along with Khamenei.