UPDATED Iran: The Great Supreme Leader Health Mystery

The Latest from Iran (18 October): Today's Two Bombings
Iran: Khamenei, Bahari, Hajjarian, and the “Semi-Normal”
Iran: The Supreme Leader Lives — The Picture (17 October)
The Latest from Iran (17 October): Back to Semi-Normal

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UPDATE 21 October: And just in case you're still doubting, the Supreme Leader's website has posted an audio and photo album from yesterday's meeting with female scholars.


UPDATE 1645 GMT: Ayatollah Khamenei’s official website has posted a photograph and full report of the Supreme Leader’s meeting with thousands of female scholars and teachers. Khamenei declared that Islam show its “respect and dignity for women and women’s talents” in the family, society, and national and international activities. He repeated his criticism of Western academia, specifically the humanities, for its teaching and worldview in contrast to an Iranian approach based on Qu’ranic principles. (Cross-posted from Latest Iran Updates, 20 October)

UPDATE 20 October 1615 GMT: The Supreme Leader did meet the head of Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, Ezatullah Zarghami, at the end of last week. Previously we had reported that the meeting was scheduled but, amidst the rumours about Ayatollah Khamenei's health, had no confirmation that it took place. (Cross-posted from Latest Iran Updates, 20 October)

Well, it's the morning after the pictures that were supposed to end all speculation about the fitness and health of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The images of the Supreme Leader with President Ahmadinejad and the visiting President of Senegal, Abdoulaye Wade, are most ordinary for a ceremonial photographs, and their message is that, after an extraordinary five days of rumour, possibility, and anxiety, all is ordinary with Iran's leadership.

Inevitably, Internet users (including Enduring America's staff) pored over the pictures to find inconsistencies and flaws that might point to a regime cover-up. Did the event even occur?

Fars News offered a curiosity when it ran a photograph different from that released by the Supreme Leader's office, with Wade in a suit rather than traditional African dress. And, indeed, the picture was of a June 2006 meeting. Yet the explanation turns out to be very mundane: all photographs are taken by Khamenei's private photographer, who then edits them and places them on the official website subject to the approval of the Supreme Leader's office. It may be hours between the news of a meeting and the emergence of any pictures, so an editor at Fars pushed out an old photo while waiting for the newer one. Wade was indeed wearing traditional dress on his visit to Tehran, a fact confirmed by his pictures at the reception at Ahmadinejad's compound.

Then there was the Photoshop speculation. Enduring America readers noticed an object which appeared to be in the same place on the same table in front of Khamenei in the 2006 and 2009 meetings. The possible, again mundane explanation, is one of habit or bureaucratic routine. The object appears to be a case or recording device used regularly on such occasions.

Some Iran-watchers are persisting with the Photoshop theory, and other rumours persist. The claim that Wade was only in Tehran for a few hours (which does not rule out a visit to Khamenei, since the Supreme Leader's office is only two blocks from the Presidential compound). The photographs are from Wade's February 2008 meeting with the Supreme Leader (we haven't yet found any pictures of that encounter). Former President Hashemi Rafsanjani tried to see Khamenei but was turned away.

My aversion to these hypotheses is because they over-complicate and thus distract from a far more important situation. In the middle of the speculation yesterday, an EA correspondent commented concisely, "He's alive, whether he's well, that's another story for another day!"

With respect, it's a matter for this day. The Supreme Leader's appearance, for at least the time it took to take the photographs, does not rule out the original story, which was that he had been taken ill earlier this week, and three doctors had been summoned to his home. (It does knock out, I think, the expansion of this into Khamenei being in hospital in a coma.) If that story is true, with the addition that the Supreme Leader was told no public appearances and only visits with family and friends, then it is a significant twist in the post-election tale. Khamenei was being firmly instructed to remove himself from the public arena but his office found, given the flurry of speculation, that removal is not possible --- sooner rather than later, he had to resurface.

That's still a big if. The origins of this rumour still lie with a single website, run by the "left" Iranian diaspora, relying on a single unnamed source. What gave the story legs were other curious developments such as the suspension of publication of several pro-Government newspapers.

So the issue is not whether "the Supreme Leader is still not dead", but how "still not dead" he is. This remains a most demanding political situation, to say the least, and a Khamenei who is less than 100%, let alone one who is significantly restricted by a prolonged illness, means new calculations by others in the manoeuvres for power.

Iran: Khamenei, Bahari, Hajjarian, and the "Semi-Normal"

The Latest from Iran (18 October): Today’s Bombings
NEW Iran: The Great Supreme Leader Health Mystery
Iran: The Supreme Leader Lives — The Picture (17 October)
The Latest from Iran (17 October): Back to Semi-Normal

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Buy Us A Cup of Coffee? Help Enduring America Expand Its Coverage and Analysis

Little did we know, when we titled yesterday's updates "Back to Semi-Normal", how appropriate the label would turn out.

The most prominent semi-normal was the apparent reappearance of the Supreme Leader after recent rumours about his poor health. We've followed yesterday's special updates with an analysis this morning of the political significance beyond the pictures of his meetings with Senegal's President Abdoulaye Wade.

Then there was the semi-normal, which will dominate "Western" coverage today, of the release of Iranian-Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari on $300,000 bail from Evin Prison. Bahari had been held since June on allegations that he had passed sensitive information to "Western" agencies plotting velvet revolution in Iran; the authorities put him on show after the first Tehran trial in August to "confess".

If this is semi-normal for Bahari, who is not "free" but still awaits a formal judgement and sentencing, the event is even more semi-normal because it obscures a wider political move by the regime. In the post-election conflict, far more significant is the suspended five-year prison sentence handed down to Saeed Hajjarian, the reformist political leader who has been at the centre of the crisis since his arrest in June.

Hajjarian, disabled by an assassin's attack nine years ago but still one of the most powerful political theorists in Iran, became a symbol for the Green opposition; he was a far different symbol for the Government, who made his "confession" first amongst equals as they constructed their foreign-inspired attempt to overthrow the regime.

With Hajjarian's suspended sentence, the Government is trying to show a supposed willingness for conciliation while it draws a line under the crisis. EA's Mr Smith was wrong in his prediction --- that the Supreme Leader would give an amnesty to Hajjarian and other key reformists --- only by a few weeks. All is now well, the Government will claim, while being on guard to re-arrest Hajjarian, imposing the suspended sentence, if he or other reformists cause more trouble.

For, in this "semi-normal" political state, the regime is still detaining allies of Mehdi Karroubi and Mir Hossein Mousavi. At 4 a.m. yesterday Government forces raided the home of Mohammad Reza Mogheyseh, the head of the Karroubi-Mousavi special committee investigating prisoner abuse cases, and arrested the activist.

No, for all the drama surrounding the Supreme Leader, for all the attention that will be given to Bahari (see how many non-Iranian media outlets even mention the Hajjarian suspended sentence), the "real" political stories of this week --- and the week to come --- are the sustained challenge by opposition leaders like Mehdi Karroubi and the still little-known negotiations over the National Unity Plan.

It is 17 days to the demonstrations of 13 Aban (4 November).