Trump should talk to Khamenei for peace with Iran

For a few hours last weekend, political circles in Tehran were seized with speculative fever regarding a possible meeting between US President Donald Trump and the Islamic Republic's President Hassan Rouhani. Trump had announced in Biarritz, where the G7's farcical summit was held, that he would be prepared to meet the Iranian leaders and believed that could happen soon. For his part, Rouhani went on TV to declare readiness to meet 'anyone', with no ifs and buts.
One 'reformist' analyst phoned me in the middle of night Paris time to 'inform' me that, with help from Trump, his faction was about to win a decisive victory over the 'hardline' faction led by Supreme Guide Ali Khamenei.
In his narrative, Rouhani would meet Trump in September when both are to attend the United Nations' General Assembly in New York. They would establish a roadmap leading to an agreement incorporating the Obama 'nuke deal' plus additional demands by Trump. That, in turn, would lead to the US lifting of sanctions, saving the Iranian economy from a meltdown.
The 'miracle' would coincide with the next general election in Iran and a secure landslide victory for the 'reformists'. That, in turn, would enable them to press for Khamenei's retirement and replacement by Rouhani, while Muhammad Javad Zarif, the 'heroic' foreign minister, throws his hat into the ring for the presidency. With Khamenei and his 'Russophile' faction eliminated, the 'New York Boys' would put Iran on a new trajectory as the United States' key partner in the Middle East.
What was remarkable in that narrative was how stale it was?
Weeks after the clerics seized power, the Carter administration in Washington identified Mehdi Bazargan, Khomeini's first prime minister, as "the man with whom we can work." After he was kicked out attention was turned to more ephemeral figures such as Ayatollah Muhammad Beheshti, Abol Hasaan Banisadr, and Sadeq Ghotbzadeh who were supposed to lead Iran out of its revolutionary phase into normality, whatever that meant.
With Ayatollah Khomeini, supposedly too old to last long, these were the men who would shape Iran's Thermidor, emerging from the reign of terror. As early as 2004, both the British and the French saw Rouhani as the man capable of delivering what Rafsanjani and Khatami had promised but failed to deliver. The horse on which John Kerry put his bet was Muhammad Javad Zarif whose team of 'New York Boys' provided Rouhani with a 'liberal' varnish.
Western analysts and their imitators inside Iran missed two crucial points. The first was that, like most revolutionary regimes, the Khomeinist outfit had no mechanism for reform in the direction desired by the Iranian middle classes and the Western powers.
The second point Western powers ignore is that Iranians today are divided into two broad camps, obviously with subdivisions within each camp. One camp consists of those, perhaps even a majority today, who are disillusioned with the Islamic Revolution and seek ways of closing its chapter as soon as possible. The idea of "change within the regime" appeals to some among them but has never offered a credible political platform from which to attempt a seizure of power within the regime.
Thus if Trump, or anyone else, wish to make a deal with the present regime in Tehran, the man they should talk to is Khamenei, not Rouhani. On Tuesday, that fact was demonstrated by Khamenei ordering Rouhani to eat humble pie and publicly recant on his boast about a summit with Trump.
The 'hardline vs moderate' comedy played in Tehran reminds me of the French Opera Buffa in which two seductive girls adopt opposite profiles. 'No-no-Nanette' always says no to admirers but ends up in bed with all of them. In contrast, 'Yes-yes Yolanda' offers tantalising yes but never goes the whole way. In the end, we find out that the two are, in fact, just one creature in two disguises, a witch bent on doing mischief.
Trump has been warned!
- Asharq Al Awsat
Amir Taheri has been a columnist for Asharq Al Awsat since 1987