Ayatollah Khamene’i: Is He Dead or Alive?
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There are rumors circulating that Iran’s supreme leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamene’i, is dead, or in a coma. The rumors are unconfirmed, which also means not proven false, and this has spurred still further speculation that the rumors might be true and Iran’s government struggling to determine how to see a smooth transition to a successor’s reign. The most prominent cleric after Khamene’i is a staunch opponent of the government of Mahmoud Ahmedinejad.
Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, himself a former president of the Islamic Republic, is the most prominent cleric after the supreme leader and chairs the Assembly of Experts, the panel of clerics tasked with selecting and anointing the supreme leader. He has been openly critical of Ahmedinejad and the 12 June elections in which apparent fraud returned him to power. Were Khamene’i to depart the Iranian political scene, Rafsanjani might be seen as a likely successor.
The rumor seems to have begun when Michael Ledeen, a “neoconservative” American political watcher affiliated with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, wrote in his blog on Tuesday that “Yesterday afternoon at 2:15 pm local time Khamenei collapsed and was taken to his special clinic. Nobody – except his son and the doctors – has since been allowed to get near him. His official, but secret, status is ‘in the hands of the gods’.”
There appear to be reports emerging from Tehran that the atmosphere on the streets is “abnormal”, implying either a gathering mood of intrigue or a new wave of heavy security. Opposition leaders have reportedly contacted the government seeking clarification. Tabnak, a website linked to the government, has said the rumors are a “shameless lie” and part of a plot by the west to “destabilize” Iran.
Ledeen has repeated the claim, citing an anonymous source which he classes as “excellent”. But Ledeen is coming under criticism for past involvement in rumors that turned out to be untrue, and is even being accused of having deliberately spread misinformation or being a career propagandist. The Guardian writes:
Ledeen has a track record in spreading misinformation, according to the US magazine Vanity Fair, which claimed he was linked in the false reports that Saddam Hussein tried to buy yellowcake uranium in Niger – one of the main pretexts for the invasion of Iraq.
And in January 2007 he falsely reported Khamenei’s death.
Vanity Fair’s article on the false intelligence regarding yellowcake uranium from Niger reported:
To trace the path of the documents from their fabrication to their inclusion in Bush’s infamous speech, Vanity Fair has interviewed a number of former intelligence and military analysts who have served in the C.I.A., the State Department, the Defense Intelligence Agency (D.I.A.), and the Pentagon. Some of them refer to the Niger documents as “a disinformation operation,” others as “black propaganda,” “black ops,” or “a classic psy-ops [psychological-operations] campaign.” But whatever term they use, at least nine of these officials believe that the Niger documents were part of a covert operation to deliberately mislead the American public.
Ledeen’s connection to that disinformation campaign certainly raises questions about the credibility of his claims about the Ayatollah Khamene’i. There have long been discussions and rumors about Khamene’i’s health, but despite Ledeen’s questionable reporting in the past, news organizations around the world have picked up this story, in part due to the tight media restrictions in Iran which make it difficult to verify or refute such rumors.
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