Honesty and Fairness According to Ayatollah Khamenei

In significant remarks on Eid al-Fitr, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic criticized the West and reiterated his distrust of the United States, citing a lack of honesty and fairness among its politicians. However, what Ayatollah Khamenei describes as honesty and fairness, what position does it hold in his own political conduct as the foremost figure of the ruling political regime in Iran? A review of just a few of his observations in recent months reflects the relationship of the apex of the political system with these two concepts, especially in the political domain. Leadership, Elections, Democracy, and Despotism. In his Eid al-Fitr speech, Ayatollah Khamenei referred to recent comments by Barack Obama regarding Washington's involvement in the coup of August 19, 1953, stating: "They say we made a mistake. Yes, you made a very big mistake, but you are still making a mistake now. You shake hands with the most despotic regimes; your hands are in the same bowl, and then you call the Islamic Republic, which is formed entirely through elections, a despotic regime! Are you fair? You Americans, you American politicians speak and judge with utmost unfairness... One wonders; what face do they have! With governments that do not allow their nations to hear the name of elections... They have made a pact; the Islamic Republic, which has had over thirty elections in thirty-six years, is called a despotism! Can these be trusted?... You cannot trust them; they are not people who speak the truth; there is no honesty in them." This is not the first time that the head of the political system refers to the number of elections held in the Islamic Republic and considers it a criterion and measure for the absence of despotism in Iran. The great verbal game of Ayatollah Khamenei is that he claims: "The entire Islamic Republic system is created through elections." Is the "honesty" and "fairness" he refers to this? Does the mere holding of elections mean the absence of despotism? Does he consider Saddam Hussein's dictatorial regime democratic because of the elections held in his favor? Which elements of free, healthy, and fair elections are realized in Iran's elections, and to what extent? Does the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic think that the majority of the Iranian people and aware foreign observers are unaware of the closed and defective power circuit in Iran? Where the leadership selects the jurists of the Guardian Council; the Guardian Council's supervisory oversight filters and bifurcates elections. The Guardian Council approves the qualifications of the desired experts from among the candidates. Later, this Assembly of Experts must oversee the leadership. Or the parliament that emerges from the supervisory oversight must legislate and put the country's affairs under scrutiny and criticism. Ayatollah Khamenei knows well how close the talk of democracy and its realization in Iran is to reality; furthermore, the existence of despotism in neighboring countries will not confirm the absence of despotism in Iran or justify the despotic situation. The suppression of independent journalists and press, violence and threats against dissenting political groups, and the imposition of restrictions and insecurity against critical thinkers in the country are well-known and documented. He accuses Washington of dishonesty and unfairness while simultaneously speaking of democracy in Iran. This is at a time when, as a witness, over 1600 days have passed since the illegal imprisonment of Mousavi and Karroubi, two candidates protesting the fraud in the 2009 presidential election. The Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, Syria, and the Assad regime. In another part of his Eid al-Fitr speech, Ayatollah Khamenei addresses Syria, stating: "We believe that in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Bahrain, Lebanon, and all countries, the decision-makers are the nations of those countries; from outside, neither we nor anyone else has the right to decide about the fate of nations; they themselves must decide. This is our belief." However, just a few seconds later, he clarifies: "A government whose slogan, goal, and intention is to stand against the Zionists is valuable for the Islamic world. We have no personal interests in Syria or Iraq; we are thinking of the Islamic world, we are thinking of the Islamic nation; our positions are thus opposed to imperialism." The "Islamic world" that the apex of the Iranian political system speaks of is his and the regime's "ideal ideological world". From this perspective, he conflates the demands of the Syrian nation with his own "position" and where he emphasizes "we are thinking of the world and the Islamic nation". But the questions do not end. Was the collusion of the security-military institutions of the Islamic Republic with the authoritarian and repressive regime reliant on Bashar al-Assad in suppressing protesters and opponents a factor in escalating violence in Syria? Was it not one of the factors that led to the emergence of the ISIS monster in the region? Did it not exacerbate the conflict between Sunnis and Shiites in Syria and Iraq? Did it not intensify the destruction of Syria? Beyond this, was the Iranian autocrats' intervention in the bloody events of Syria and their assistance in the continuation of Assad's regime based on the "decision of the Syrian nation"? Did the majority of Iranians sympathize with this intervention? Is the political "honesty" and "fairness" desired by the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic really this? The leadership of the system and the confessions of the leaders of the Tudeh Party. In one of his recent speeches (during Ramadan and in a meeting with students), Ayatollah Khamenei emphasized the "defeat of Marxist thought in the world", saying: "Those who were members of the Tudeh Party and had spent twenty years in prison later came on the Islamic Republic's television, without any pressure or coercion, wrote and read the 'I was wrong' letter; you may not remember this; it was in the early 1980s. Ten to twelve members of the Tudeh Party came to the Islamic Republic's television. At that time, I was the president; I was surprised, we active friends and top officials of the country were surprised... It was not us who asked them to confess; they confessed of their own accord. This is part of the very valuable documents of the media." Regardless of the judgment regarding the record of the Tudeh Party and the actions of its leaders, what is noteworthy here is Ayatollah Khamenei's reference to the writing of the "I was wrong" letter and the "confession without pressure and coercion" of the leaders of the Tudeh Party. There is much to say about this; however, as an important witness, one can refer to the historic letter of Nouraddin Kianouri to the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic in February 1990. In this detailed letter, the top figure of the Tudeh Party provides a detailed account of the tortures inflicted upon him and his party members. Some of the violence described in the aforementioned document includes: - Beating with a plastic tube to the point of "mangling the soles of the feet"; - "Cuffing" for 8 to 10 consecutive hours for 18 nights in a row; - Beating accompanied by "various insults and the coarsest profanity"; - Hanging a person by a rope from the ceiling while simultaneously cuffed; and - "Psychological torture": beating the wife and daughter in front of the accused. In his detailed and strange letter to the head of the system, Kianouri emphasizes: "I swear by our human conscience that not a word of what I wrote is contrary to fact and truth." A quarter of a century after this bitter letter, however, Ayatollah Khamenei speaks of the "confession without pressure and coercion" of the leaders of the Tudeh Party, and of course, of "honesty" and "fairness"... Machiavelli writes in "The Prince": "For a ruler, having good qualities is not so important. What matters is that he knows how to pretend to have these qualities well... so that when a person sees him or hears his words, he has no doubt that this prince is the embodiment of compassion, loyalty, and honesty and belief in religion." In this context, Khamenei's emphasis on the lack of change in Iran's overall policy towards America, the shift in the battlefield of "proxy wars"; the war against the people in the streets of Iran, the first paragraph; the responsibility of opponents and the possibility of radicalizing Iranian society, the death of the last Mossad representative in Tehran amid the Iran crisis, the Secretary of Iran's Security Council: the time for reconnecting the internet is unknown, the shadow of war over Tehran; "Trump is seeking decisive military options against Iran", Trump says if the Islamic Republic assassinates him, "it will be wiped off the face of the earth", a senior U.S. official: the Trump administration is closely monitoring the case of Reza Vali Zadeh, the death of the last Mossad representative in Tehran amid the Iran crisis.