World Politics

  • Iran is at the front in its own ambitions

    The Supreme Leader of Iran is known as being unpretentious but able to react quickly. He’s not slow in thought, in other words, but neither is he showy in his actions. His leadership credentials are therefore obvious for such a nation as Iran, but his qualities need proving first.

    In his ‘first’ message to Iranians – and therefore the world – his sentiments are deep. He sees Iran as a nation in need of saving from America, the “Great Satan” that has more charm than bite, but has admittedly made an attempt recently. He’s undeterred, believing his subjects will fight with him until the end if necessary.

    He’s also playing the same game as America, toying with the Strait of Hormuz as if it really matters, which the US President has also done, but also with eccentricity. Iran, likewise, has put out social media videos mocking America using a popular toy. If the same tactic is in use, it shows the Strait doesn’t really matter.

    Mojtaba is a new leader on an old landscape, and he has to repeat lines that he’s inherited there. But maybe he sees things differently, and will vary from his late father’s vision. He’s more interested in the finer detail than ballistic ambitions, and developments will come inwardly, not with the same outward focus.

  • Khamenei’s leadership is gone with the wind

    Ali Khamenei was driven more by a personal philosophy than was reported in his lifetime, showing that hot political topics are more likely to overshadow prescient points until the details are able to come through. To understand his life is an effort to get to grips with how he saw things everyday, because what he created in Iran is the state it’s in today.

    The nerve centre of his operation is said to have been a planning committee that functioned as his active core. It had the business of preserving the national heritage of the Persian power while building on it with modern innovations. This was to keep the status quo active for as long as his regime was going. It defined his philosophy of being while doing, illustrated by a fusion of religion and modern duties.

    This focus on deliberation actually leaves much of it as a mystery, maybe preserved or maybe having disappeared with his life, because the meetings were kept private. It has a similarity to the meetings that happen between high level personnel, but Khamenei wanted his leadership to be at the crux of what it was about, and so limited its coverage by military secrecy. He defined an era of modern Iran and his leadership cannot easily be forgotten.

  • Iran’s Supreme Leader first has geopolitical realities

    Iran’s new Supreme Leader has to regain control over the matters his father had engaged. Some of these are obvious, but others will have been collected up by the former leader in the course of the war mongering of his dictatorial regime.

    These are added up into the collective power that Iran has and uses to wield influence in the same region and across the world.

    It may or may not include the terror elements in places like Gaza and Lebanon. These are less easy to handle and Mojtaba Khamenei is likely to decide against maintaining them as power bases, but invite their support nonetheless.