Iranian protesters' slogans target Khamenei as the real enemy

Supreme leader calls for tolerance in TV speech
Remarks show who really is in charge
Iran supreme Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
A still from a video broadcast by Iran's IRIB televsion yesterday: Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks at a meeting with representatives of presidential candidates. Photograph: AP/IRIB /AP/IRIB

Given the turmoil unfolding around him, the soothing call for peace and harmony seemed to belong to an alien planet. But if Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, sensed anything untoward in his words, he didn't show it.

"Everybody should be patient," he told a televised gathering yesterday evening convened to discuss last week's disputed presidential election. "Tolerance is very difficult, whether for he who has won, or the one who is defeated. Increase the capacity for defeat in yourself."

Khamenei's entrance into the centre of the crisis triggered by the biggest mass protests since the 1979 revolution seemed to convey two things:

With the Islamic republic facing its biggest internal crisis in its 30-year existence, he, rather than the president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is in charge.

Whatever impressions the earlier concession of a partial recount may have given, Khamenei was sticking with Ahmadinejad, whom he insisted on calling "the elected president".

Both issues are critical. Increasingly, for those in rival camps, the contest is no longer about the deeply divisive person of Ahmadinejad, however compelling he might be.

Large segments of the crowds who have gathered to protest against the result see Khamenei rather than Ahmadinejad as their true adversary.

While chants of "death to the dictator" might be ambiguous in their target, there is no doubt about another popularly-used slogan: "Seiyed Ali Pinochet, Chile Iran nemishe" (Seiyed Ali Pinochet, Iran won't become Chile).

For his part, in backing Ahmadinejad so staunchly, Khamenei has abandoned whatever pretence remained that his position was that of an impartial religious arbiter in whom all could invest reasonable hopes of justice.

Some observers have long believed that Khamenei has seen Ahmadinejad as an extension of his own power.

In this view, the president's denial of the Holocaust, provocative statements on Israel, fierce anti-western rhetoric and other hardline positions are little more than expressions of the world according to Khamenei, whose position gives him the final say over all state matters.

Akbar Ganji, an exiled Iranian journalist who spent six years in Tehran's Evin prison for his writings about senior regime insiders, has characterised Khamenei as a "latter-day sultan" who guards his powers so jealously that he personally appoints junior revolutionary guard brigade commanders.

Superimposed on this picture has been the widely-held belief - now surely established as accurate - that Khamenei has had the backing of a hard core of radical mullahs, revolutionary guards and intelligence officers who may not have been in the vanguard of the Islamic revolution but cut their teeth in Iran's bloody 1980-88 war with Iraq.

The group, which has coalesced around Ahmadinejad, harbours dreams of transforming Iran from an Islamic republic to an Islamic government, a distinction which would do away with elections and the need to observe the late Ayatollah Khomeini's invocation to respect the "people's will". By this vision, Iran would forever take its guidance only from the divine, in the form of an all-powerful spiritual leader.

It is this philosophy that has pitted them - and Khamenei - against a coalition whose most senior figure is Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president and pillar of the revolution who now heads two significant state bodies: the expert's assembly and expediency council.

While Mir Hossein Mousavi, the defeated reformist candidate, has emerged as its most visible figurehead, Rafsanjani has become the bete noir of those supporting Khamenei and Ahmadinejad.

Some sources suggest that he visited Iran's main shrine city of Qom last weekend, home of the country's religious establishment, in an effort to drum up support within the 86-member experts' assembly against the election result but was knocked back. The reports have not been confirmed.

The coalition includes a usual-suspects array of reformist politicians, including the former president Mohammad Khatami and Mehdi Karroubi, the other pro-reform candidate in last week's election.

But with a second-generation battle for the revolution's soul looming, clues to which way the wind will blow could be provided by the decisions of an anti-Ahmadinejad band of fundamentalists.

Ali Larijani, the speaker of Iran's parliament, and Mohsen Rezai, a former revolutionary guard commander and the election's fourth candidate, have suddenly started playing their cards close to their chest, despite initially accepting Ahmadinejad's re-election.

Larijani, also considered close to Khamenei, even condemned a brutal raid by security forces against students at Tehran University on Sunday, ordering a parliamentary inquiry into the incident. It was the tell-tale sign of a cautious man hedging his bets in a highly volatile and unpredictable field.

Four scenarios

Happy ending

To widespread surprise, the hardline Guardian Council conducts a thorough recount of votes, as ordered by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and decides, amid much embarrassment, that there should be a new election. Mir Hossein Mousavi wins. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accepts defeat. Pro-democracy demonstrators celebrate triumph of "green revolution". New government responds positively to US invitation to "unclench fist" and open talks on nuclear issue.

Damp squib

The partial recount ordered by the Supreme Leader concludes Ahmadinejad won a clear victory, although by a narrower margin. Despite lingering suspicions of foul play, the opposition is forced to accept the verdict amid a continuing nationwide crackdown on dissent and warnings that further disorder will be dealt with harshly. Ahmadinejad, in bad odour with the Supreme Leader for provoking demonstrators, moderates his line on policy issues. Mousavi vows to fight again.


The Guardian Council's partial vote recount and investigation into electoral fraud are rejected by the opposition. Demonstrations spread and intensify, with ever greater numbers of Iranians taking to the streets calling for the resignation of Khamenei and Ahmadinejad. Security forces respond with increasing force, arresting thousands and closing down media coverage, texting networks, websites and Twitter. Purge of reformist leaders, intellectuals, students and journalists continues. Leaderless demos gradually peter out, leaving resentment. Ahmadinejad steps up anti-western rhetoric. Resumed protests at a later date considered highly likely.

A second revolution

An insider cabal of senior clerical and establishment conservatives challenges Khamenei and forces his resignation after a vote in the Assembly of Experts. Former president Hashemi Rafsanjani is elected in his stead and orders an investigation into the actions of Ahmadinejad and other senior members of the regime. Hardliners rally round the president while reformists demand new elections. Amid growing instability, Iran's unique Islamic/secular system of governance appears in danger of collapse.

Simon Tisdall and Ellie Rose