The Ayatollah Begs to Differ by Hooman Majd Page B

1979, when the word “Ayatollah” entered our dictionaries, Khomeini, the first Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution, was viewed by many (if not most) Shias as a well-established marja whose thoughts, at least in the religious realm, carried great weight, if not total infallibility. (His photos still adorn many a Hezbollah supporter’s home and office in Beirut.) If the clerical hierarchy of Shia Islam were more like that of the Catholic Church, similar though it is in some respects, Khomeini would have undoubtedly been elected the Shia pope. That cannot be said of Ali Khamenei, and furthermore it is unlikely to be true of the next or future Supreme Leader either. The Assembly of Experts, which is charged with electing the Supreme Leader (it also has the power to impeach, if necessary), is a body whose members are elected by the regular citizens of Iran (unlike the appointed College of Cardinals), and the members are more often concerned with who can most effectively preserve the clerics’ domination of Iranian politics and power than with whoever has the highest religious authority. It is a sensitive and intricate balancing act, for the religious credentials must certainly be such that the Revolutionary Guards and other religiously minded Iranians will accept his Islamic “guidance,” but he must also ensure that the Guards’ loyalty to the office remains, as the Guards’ power grows with every new missile and every new oil contract, both religious
and
political. It is easy to understand why so many Iranians were captivated by the question of who that person might be.

    In a country where there are dozens of daily newspapers and weekly periodicals, only some of which are state controlled, news of the Supreme Leader was scarce in the winter of 2007. It is an unwritten rule of Iranian public discourse that no one is above criticism except the Supreme Leader and the velayat-e-faqih, and since any mention of the Supreme Leader that isn’t completely innocuous can be viewed as critique if the judiciary so decides, no one in the media wished to risk arrest or closure of a paper by mentioning the rumors of his impending or actual death. (Television and radio, which are state owned, had no news of him to report either.) Which of course only fueled those rumors further, to the point where finally Ayatollah Khamenei was forced to publicly issue a statement denying his own death. “Enemies of the Islamic system,” he said, “fabricated various rumors about death and health to demoralize the Iranian nation.” (Some viewed the statement, along with photos of a visibly weak Leader, as a less-than-ringing endorsement of his health.) He was right about a demoralized nation, but he got the reason wrong, if he even believed it himself (since he can’t read about his own person in the papers, it is up to his aides to tell him of such rumors if they believe they are getting out of hand). No one I spoke to, not even ardent supporters of velayat-e-faqih, seemed particularly upset by the rumors, but they were all quite demoralized by UN sanctions, the state of the economy, and the possibility of war with the United States, all of which was blamed on the government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Perhaps it is just that the Supreme Leader does the job of deflecting discontent and blame away from his office so well that the idea of his passing has impact mostly, or only, to the extent that the people wonder if his successor will utilize more or less of his power in setting the government straight.

    The Supreme Leader and his predecessor, Ayatollah Khomeini, in separate photos but always side by side, stare down from the walls of every government office and even some businesses. Photos of the president, whoever he is at any given time, are rarely seen anywhere. Unlike in dictatorships elsewhere, the Supreme Leader’s likeness need not be displayed in the private sector and often isn’t; as such, if you’re looking at Khomeini and