Free The Ayatollah Begs to Differ by Hooman Majd Page B

was started in Iran or by hopeful exiles abroad, but Michael Ledeen of the American Enterprise Institute, a notorious neocon, perhaps having picked up some Persian traits of his own through his obsession with all things Iranian, or actually all things Iranian having to do with regime change, declared it as a fact on his Web site and viewed it, as almost every Iranian did, as one of the momentous occasions in the brief history of Iran’s Islamic Republic. 2 Ledeen, famous for advocating regime change in Iran
before
Iraq, and an archenemy of the Iranian clerics since 1979, could hardly contain his glee, perhaps believing that a weak Iran temporarily without a Supreme Leader might be ripe for some “shock and awe” courtesy of the Pentagon. For days afterward, bloggers, both in Iran and internationally, competed with each other to either confirm or deny the rumor, but what seemed clear, even to those who denied Khamenei’s death, was that business was not as usual where the valih-e-faqih was concerned.
    Inside Iran, the question quickly stopped being whether he was dead or not and became who his natural successor was. It was assumed that Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, chairman of the Expediency Council (a body that is technically above the president and supervises his work), newly reelected to the Assembly of Experts along with many of his allies, and the de facto number two in the hierarchy of the Islamic Republic, would once again, as he did when Khomeini died in 1989, play kingmaker rather than king. Rafsanjani, from the pistachio-producing town of Rafsanjan, had been one of Khomeini’s closest aides and advisers, almost always seen quietly by his side, but his public profile had risen when he became president in 1989 and served two terms until Khatami’s election in 1997. Rafsanjani’s wealth (and his penchant for accumulating more of it), along with his sons’ extensive business dealings and his notoriety overseas (an Argentine judge has issued an arrest warrant for him for his alleged role in the bombing of Buenos Aires’s Jewish Center in 1994), many argued, would lead him not to seek the Supreme Leader’s office but rather to use his influence and power to put someone else, considerably weaker than himself, in the job.
    There was also the unspoken issue of Rafsanjani’s white turban: he was not a
Seyyed
, a direct descendant of the Prophet Mohammad who is entitled to wear a black turban, and in the Shia tradition of placing great importance on bloodline in the legitimacy of rule, it might be difficult, at least for some, to accept a non-Seyyed as their Supreme Guide. Seyyed Mohammad Khatami, however, black-turbaned and with the blood of Mohammad coursing through his veins, was a name that kept surfacing as a likely choice. There was, of course, the question of his religious credentials, for even though he was a Seyyed, he was only a
Hojjatoleslam
, a rank below Ayatollah, and the Supreme Leader is supposed to be a
marja-e-taghlid
, or “source of emulation,” the Persian definition of a
Grand
Ayatollah. But that hadn’t stopped Khamenei from becoming the Supreme Leader in 1989; he was overnight promoted to Ayatollah (promotion to Ayatollah happens by consensus among other Ayatollahs), and soon thereafter was being referred to as “Grand.” Those who spoke of Khatami as potential Supreme Leader were genuinely excited by the prospect, and those who dismissed him as a candidate felt he lacked the cunning required to pull off such a feat (in both cases being complimentary to Khatami, for the cunningness of mullahs—or
akhound
, as they are known in Farsi—is considered both legendary and their fundamental character flaw).

    As the days wore on with still no public sign of Khamenei, the rumors gathered steam, forcing Iranian diplomats abroad to deny them without offering proof that their Supreme Guide was still giving them guidance. The Supreme Leader’s office was mute on the subject, although it