As President Donald Trump continues to play Schrödinger's Deal with Iran, those of us watching from the sidelines and wondering how long this will go on are also wondering something else: With whom exactly is the United States trying to make a deal?
More to the point: Who is even running that country anymore?
In Iran, the president is tasked with managing the country's day-to-day operations, but he ultimately answers to the Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah. Meanwhile, the Ayatollah is the ultimate head of state, and no deal can conceivably happen without his sign-off.
It is well known that Masoud Pezeshkian has served in the role of president for the past two years. Where things get fuzzy is trying to pin down who the Supreme Leader is these days and how much he is in control.
“One of the most interesting and/or odd things about Operation Epic Fury/Roaring Lion has been the speculation about who is leading Iran after the death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,” my venerable colleague Stephen Kruiser wrote back in March. “Once it was confirmed that his son Mojtaba would be succeeding him, rumors were running wild about the state of his health. No one was sure if he was all dead, half dead, a quarter dead, or fit as a fiddle and looking to relocate somewhere with fewer bombs. That's still the case. It's been quite a bizarre sideshow to the seriousness of the war.”
And to this day, no one has seen hide nor hair of the alleged Supreme Leader in public. I'm sure part of the reason for that is security, but still — he could at least release a video to assert himself. Perhaps he is grotesquely disfigured and hides himself away from the world’s cruel gaze, à la Phantom of the Opera. Maybe he’s nothing more than a brain in a jar hooked up to a gut sack. No one knows.
To this end, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian made multiple demands to meet with Khamenei last spring. After he threatened to quit if he did not receive an audience, the Ayatollah relented, and a meeting took place in May. Pezeshkian later "told a gathering of trade association representatives that he had spent two and a half hours with the new leader 'in a cordial atmosphere,'" reports Iran International.
But the outlet is now saying that the president's characterization of the meeting is nothing like what actually took place. Based safely in London, Iran International claims that sources say the encounter was more like something out of a political crime thriller:
The meeting itself was a concession extracted under pressure. Khamenei's office agreed to it only after repeated requests from Pezeshkian and his threat to resign, the sources said, and the president was informed that, contrary to standard practice, he would not be received at the leader's usual residence.
Instead, his security detail delivered him to an undisclosed location somewhere in Tehran. There he was taken from his own vehicle and seated in the back of a commercial car with tinted windows, where, apparently, Khamenei was already waiting. The spot was dark enough that the two men could not see each other, and Khamenei's guards did not permit a handshake. The conversation was carried entirely by voice.
Due to the security risks Khamenei was facing, and after having (allegedly) narrowly escaped a targeted bombing with his life, one can excuse a certain level of paranoia from the Supreme Leader. But what was with the darkened interior and the prohibition of a handshake? Did his arms get blown off or something?
Iran International's sources said the Ayatollah's elusive behavior "angered Pezeshkian, who regarded it as humiliating. According to individuals in the president's office, he later asked whether the person beside him had in fact been the supreme leader, since he had only heard a voice in the dark."
"It is unclear whether the remark was an expression of anger or genuine doubt," Iran International notes. Further, "Pezeshkian has since requested a second meeting, this time at the leader's residence. The request has so far been denied."
Sounds like we might have a "President" Joe Biden situation on our hands, where an incapacitated figurehead is propped up by a shadowy cabal that runs the country in his name. One wonders how the U.S. can possibly finalize an existential deal with a country in such a state of leadership crisis.
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