Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei banned further diplomatic negotiations between Tehran and Washington on Wednesday, claiming that a thaw with the US threatens the country’s theocratic system.
Khamenei described US diplomacy as “[concentrated] on enmity toward the Establishment of the Islamic Iran [sic]” and said American efforts to further dialogue are “aimed at [paving the way for] infiltration.”
He then took aim at the government led by President Hassan Rouhani, calling pro-diplomacy factions “simple-minded” and “carefree people…who don’t care for and pay no attention to the country’s expediency and national interests.”
The immediate impact of the ban could damper renewed diplomatic efforts to end Syria’s Civil War. Late last month, Reuters reported that Secretary of State John Kerry was planning to meet with Iranian officials at the United Nations General Assembly to discuss a political resolution to the conflict.
The claims also call into question a common American conservative analysis of President Obama’s diplomatic initiative with Iran on nuclear issues—that dialogue has emboldened its Islamic Republican system.
“What Obama is doing is giving Russia and Iran more influence in the mid-east anytime since the mid-70s,” floundering Republican presidential candidate Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told Buzzfeed on Wednesday.
Senate Armed Services Committee chair John McCain (R-Ariz.), a fervent critic of the nuclear deal, said it will “further Iran’s emergence as a dominant military power in the Middle East.”
Khamenei seems to see things differently, however.
“Negotiation with America is banned because such negotiation will not only have no advantage [for Iran], but will also entail numerous disadvantages,” he said.
“The enemies are trying to change [our] officials’ calculations and influence the thoughts of people, particularly youths, and everyone should be vigilant and conscious [to prevent this],” Khamenei also remarked.
While Khamenei and Republicans offer different reasons why diplomacy should be viewed with suspicion, the Supreme Leader’s remarks also lend credence to President Obama’s controversial claim—that Republicans have more in common with Iranian hardliners who chant “Death to America” than either side would care to admit; at least, with respect to how they view the merits of dialogue between the two countries.
“I think the president has demeaned and cheapened the Office of the presidency by that kind of comment on — it seems it is [immoral] to attack to those who disagree and characterize their opposition,” said McCain.
Khamenei’s Wednesday edict contrasts sharply with Rouhani recent rhetoric, as The New York Times noted. At the United Nations General Assembly, the moderate said that “we cannot live in the past forever.” His chief envoy, Javad Zarif, shook hands with President Obama during the meeting, becoming the first Iranian official to shake an American Commander-in-Chief’s in about three and a half decades.
“It has already cost me at home. But everything I do costs me at home, so this is not an aberration,” Zarif told New Yorker magazine.
Throughout the hashing out of the multilateral nuclear agreement, key players maintained that the talks were narrow and would pertain only to nuclear issues. At one point in March, former State Department spokesperson Marie Harf said talks would likely not lead to “rapprochement” in an impromptu debate with reporters about the meaning of the French word. In August, Secretary of State John Kerry, however, said it would be “diplomatic malpractice” to outright reject any Iranian overtures.
In his statement, Khamenei said that diplomatic relations with other countries, “including European,” would not be impeded by his ruling, reflecting the theocracy’s deep distrust of the US government: a body that has intervened in Iranian affairs—often rather violently—both before and after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
“The issue is different when it comes to America because they (Americans) have come up with a definition of negotiations with the Islamic Republic of Iran, [which] means infiltration and paving the way for imposition [of their demands on Iran],” he said.
