The fleets have approached closer, and the generals have pored over maps. The scent of war is in the air. The region holds its breath. Coexisting with Iran’s approach is less costly than enduring the collapse of the Iranian regime. Mediation has been set in motion. The region seems locked into a contest open to all possibilities. It is unlikely for the fleets to return without extracting a price that justifies the exorbitant cost of their journey. It is also difficult to imagine the Iranian regime publicly bowing to the master of the fleets.
In this context, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei chose to address his people and the world from the shrine of Khomeini. It is difficult to speculate about what went through the Supreme Leader’s mind during this striking visit, both in its timing and its symbolism. Did he seek to remind Iranians that the current approach is precisely what the man lying in the shrine had called for? The man who had sparked the revolution and shaped his country? Did he seek to reaffirm his allegiance and commitment to the late leader’s unquestionable directives? Did he wish to tell Iranians that he was not prepared to accept a settlement that would offend the occupant of the shrine? Did he wish to remind them that he had been entrusted with the shrine and safeguarding its occupant’s path, that he is mandated to save the country and the people, along with the shrine and its inhabitant? Did the Supreme Leader remunerate over his predecessor’s iron will? Or did he recall his words about “drinking the poison chalice” when the balance of power forced him to accept a ceasefire with the “infidel Baathist regime”? And did it occur to him that persuading the destroyers to refrain from sparking a fire would require drinking poison on Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs, as well as its network of proxies?
The most difficult contests are fought when both sides struggle to accept or acknowledge defeat. Sometimes the injured party chooses defiance, aggravating losses and risking everything. Donald Trump cannot accept looking weak, and Khamenei cannot crown his life with submission.
Since assuming his position following Khomeini’s death in 1989, Khamenei has shown reverence for the former’s legacy, furthering pursuits that had been broadly outlined by the late leader. The journey has not been easy, especially when storms intensified. It could be said that Khamenei dealt with major events that shook the world and the Middle East with competence or skill. His grip on domestic affairs was complete and absolute, and his apparatuses pounced on every opportunity. The regime dealt with the collapse of the Soviet Union, Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, and the new century defined by 9/11. It was also agile and shrewd in Iraq following the American invasion, which had provided for regional expansion. Thus began the era of General Qassem Soleimani, who was close to the Supreme Leader’s mind and heart. Iran entrenched its position within the new Iraqi political system. The regime of Bashar al-Assad became its bridge to Lebanon. Iran thereby established itself on the shores of the Mediterranean and, through Hezbollah, on Israel’s borders. During those years of expansion, the Houthis rose, and Ali Abdullah Saleh met the same fate as Rafik Hariri.
Khamenei, who can recall breakthroughs and achievements, also bears many wounds. He cannot forget the day he was informed that Soleimani had become a charred corpse near Baghdad airport. The missile that eliminated him carried Donald Trump’s unmistakable signature. Nor can he forget how retaliation failed to live up to the man’s stature and role. Trump dared to go where predecessors had not. He killed Soleimani and shook Iran’s image. He challenged both the Supreme Leader and the occupant of the shrine at once.
The era of successive breakthroughs and achievements has ended. He is now a man with many wounds. The euphoria of the “Flood” dissipated swiftly. Fleets arrived, and destroyers drew near to change the calculus. The wounds began to accumulate. A brutal man named Netanyahu sent his brutal fighter jets and severely punished the “Axis of Resistance.” The wounds kept coming: Ismail Haniyeh, the Supreme Leader’s guest, was killed in the heart of Tehran. An airstrike killed Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut; like Soleimani, he had been dear to the Supreme Leader’s mind and heart. There was also the blow to Sinwar and the “Sinwar Flood,” and the blow of seeing Ahmad al-Sharaa close the corridor of influence and missiles, sit on the Assads’ chair, and have the doors of the White House and the Kremlin opened to him. All these wounds might have been bearable were it not for the harshest of them all: the sight of Israeli aircraft dominating Tehran’s skies and the bombers of Soleimani’s killer attacking nuclear facilities.
The season of retreat is excruciating when it follows a season of conquest. Iran had been fighting on others’ maps, through proxies and small armies that filled their maps with tunnels, missiles, and drones. It is excruciating to hear that the reconstruction of Gaza is contingent on disarming Hamas and that reconstruction in Lebanon is contingent on disarming Hezbollah. The scenes are painful. Trump was not satisfied with clipping claws; he was determined to chop off fingers and arms, and he attacked the mother factory itself.
Trump’s term will continue for another three years. Three years separate the Iranian Revolution from extinguishing its fiftieth candle. Neither individuals nor states and revolutions can escape the signs of aging. Silencing protests with excessive brutality deepens the tension between the revolution and those born under it. Fanning the embers of the early days does not solve the problem. Confronting foreign actors, an eye must be kept on the domestic scene. Foreign powers have many arms: media that expose secrets, the dollar that continues to crush the national currency and those who use it, and Europe’s designation of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps on the terrorism list.
Khamenei knows that Trump is placing the regime before bitter choices: either a man makes change from within, or a man from without will break it. It is as though Trump is demanding that the revolution retire beneath the cloak of the state, heed the people and the language of the age, leave the discourse of “exporting the revolution” to rest in peace, and allow the Iranian shrine to retire as the Chinese shrine once did. The Supreme Leader cannot accept Trump’s demands. Nor can he indefinitely persist in allowing Iran to be governed by a shrine.
