Why is Ayatollah Khamenei a 'Mokhafeq' of the Nuclear Agreement?

Kiumars Saberi, known by the pen name 'Gol Agha', had a daily humor column in the Ettelaat newspaper titled 'Two Words of Reason'. One of the characters created in this column was Ghazanfari, who was considered the 'Public Relations Officer of Gol Agha's Pantry'. The term 'Mokhafeq' was also coined by Ghazanfari. The story goes that during discussions about the privatization of schools, Ghazanfari feared that if he agreed to the privatization of private schools, some would label him a supporter of capitalism, and if he opposed it, others would accuse him of supporting socialism. Thus, he quietly expressed his position to Gol Agha as 'Mokhafeq', a combination of agreement and disagreement, which is a way of shirking a clear stance. As long as the position of the Public Relations Officer of Gol Agha is discussed, one can understand the evasion of a clear stance. Ghazanfari was a timid character who avoided taking a position out of fear of possible attacks. But does the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, despite all the power granted to him by the Constitution and the power he has gained through military and security forces, find himself in a weak position like Ghazanfari, afraid to take a clear stance on the nuclear agreement? When it came to Iran's official decision-making, it seemed that Ayatollah Khamenei was finally implicitly expressing an opinion in public and coming out in opposition. He stated that it is fair and just for the parliament to also give its opinion on this matter. This position contradicted the government's view, which considered the National Security Council's opinion sufficient. While the concerned followers of the leader had become emboldened by his stance, believing that the leader was against the agreement and that the parliament's concerns were important and could derail the agreement, suddenly, with a nighttime session attended by a representative of the leader, the parliament's opinion changed, and instead of discussing 200 proposals in detail, the approval process was completed in 20 minutes. After the concerned individuals felt hopeless and realized they had been outmaneuvered, the leader proposed seemingly decisive conditions for the implementation of the agreement, aiming to restore the hope of the concerned individuals and to indicate that he had reminded the government of their conditions to consider during the implementation stages of the agreement. Both he and the government officials, as well as many of the concerned individuals, know in their hearts that these conditions have no practical meaning. At best, they are excuses for undermining the agreement when it becomes convenient. But why is the leader, with all his power, unwilling to accept responsibility for the acceptance of the agreement - at least at this stage? Why does he pretend to be against the agreement when, without his approval, the process could not have reached its current stage? Why, despite announcing that the presence of a representative of the leader's office in the session the night before the parliament's decision was not the 'independent role of some officials of his office', is he still unwilling to accept that the parliament has yielded to his hint? Why has he made the Speaker of the Parliament a scapegoat to please the concerned individuals, placing the burden of the decision on him to the extent that in his presence, he is called 'the disgrace of the nation' and even 'a hypocrite'? Whatever the case, the leadership is evading the responsibility of agreeing to the nuclear agreement under the guise of 'Mokhafeq'. He is afraid of accepting the responsibility for decision-making. His fear comes from within. He fears and shies away from accepting the burden of responsibility for the failure of the nuclear program (which has cost so much, including at his behest). His hand is not so full of the spiritual influence of the first leader that he can openly accept the failure of his nuclear program. On the other hand, he sees his own hand empty of the possibility of resistance. He has neither the numbers nor the resources: he is left without allies and without belief. Perhaps this loneliness and helplessness became clearer to him than ever during the June 2013 elections. Ayatollah Khamenei, like anyone else, could see during the 2013 presidential elections that neither political elites agreed with his nuclear policy nor did the voting public. Thus, he acquiesced to Rouhani's election. He accepted this change because, despite the encouragement of his close associates to resist, he did not want to bear the responsibility for the intensification of sanctions and the possibility of a military attack. However, now he does not want to show that in this state of disbelief and lack of support, he has accepted an agreement that, at least according to the beliefs of his concerned followers, contains various impositions, the same impositions that were the basis for the concerned individuals' sharp attacks against the existing nuclear agreement. The irresponsibility and evasion of responsibility of the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic is not only related to the psychology of his character. Part of this irresponsibility relates to the legal and practical structure of the leadership's power. In this structure, there is no balance between the power and responsibility of the leader: a potentially unlimited power and an actual (and even potentially) responsibility at the level of nothingness: akin to a monarch in a royal system. Beyond the structural factor, the practices of consolidating power in the Islamic Republic also prevent Ayatollah Khamenei from explicitly accepting responsibility for his decisions. The power of the current government in the Islamic Republic, in the absence of the type of ideological hegemony that existed after the revolution's victory and during the war and the charismatic influence of the first leader, is mainly based on naked but hidden power. This naked and hidden power can be seen in the organized forces that are ready to suppress opponents in the streets, neighborhoods, offices, and educational institutions, outside of established institutions - but alongside them. These are the same 'self-styled' individuals who can call the Speaker of the Parliament a hypocrite in the presence of the leader, disrupt the President's speech elsewhere, spread slander and lies in their media, create cases, torture and kill their interrogators, assassinate their agents, initiate chain murders, and ultimately remain immune from any punishment. The leader's unlimited power is, in practice, consolidated on the shoulders of these individuals, who, by intimidating everyone and instilling fear in others, from ordinary people to religious authorities, from ministers to lawyers, have concealed the leader's fear and paved the way for the leader's irresponsible power. Ayatollah Khamenei neither wants to shed the borrowed mantle of 'Ali-like' decisiveness from the first leader in the eyes of these individuals nor does he have the capacity to bear the responsibility of the resistance he calls for. Thus, he is still forced to take refuge in the trench of 'Mokhafeq', while he has practically signed the agreement, allowing the self-styled individuals and the concerned to remain hopeful that the 'JCPOA waiver was a fruitless effort'.