Wide reports of the world’s second most unsupreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is pushing the deal to a parliament that is a big rubber stamp outside the President’s jurisdiction. To put this in a venn diagram, imagine parliament facing away from the President and Rouhani facing away from Parliament and then imagine they are both helpless in the groping embrace of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and you’ve got a perfect picture of how Iranian “democracy” works. Yet, the Supreme leader is a big believer in representative democracy but not a fan as his actions demonstrate.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is carefully following our politics, which to be fair is a American “reality television” and it’s not coincidental that the IRGC hints that it is going along as mentioned in my tweet, the IRGC is saying nuclear weapons are unnecessary for Iran’s defense, a true statement that suggests they can only be aggressive weapons for the terror state. While the Ayatollah has fallen short of endorsing the deal, he’s also fallen short of being critical but has allowed rumors to come out stating both positions. Apparently a holy leader cannot stand for anything before he knows what America is going to do. Benjamin Netanyahu, frequently accused having no more backbone than the polls allow is fearless of US policy choices and American voters, rather he ultimately trusts democracy even when it errors but not our Supreme Leader in Iran. He’s too fragile a creature to suffer the humiliation of a vote contradicting his desires. There's no reason for Iran to keep Rouhani and Mohammad Javad Zarif out prison if the holy despot didn't like the deal. Even an ordinary despot could milk a US no vote against the Iran deal into a year’s supply but not supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iran is a far more fragile than the supporters and critics of the Iran Nuclear Deal are giving credit for. Just look at the tiptoeing this supreme autocratic does for something he wants.