‎

The replacement of Ali Larijani with Saeed Jalili to head Iran’s Supreme National ‎Security Council is a clear example of the supremacy of the “neocons” in the Iranian ‎regime.‎

During his reign as the deputy Foreign Minister for Europe and America, Jalili did ‎nothing other than repeat President Ahmadinejad’s positions. For example, just like the ‎President, he has stressed that Iran’s nuclear project is “not negotiable on any argument” ‎‎(IRNA news agency, September 8, 2007). He also believes that “Iran’s nuclear issue is ‎not complicated at all”, and that the most important goal of the government is “not to be ‎terrified” (Fars news agency, March 7, 2007). But most importantly, like the President, ‎Jalili believes that the government has the responsibility to rectify the world. Jalili was ‎one of the three individuals on the presidential committee that was responsible for the ‎preparation of presidential letters to world leaders (Mehr news agency, June 7, 2006). He ‎was even the special presidential chief of mission that went to Cuba on the strange ‎mission of “inviting Fidel Castro to Islam” (Farda newspaper, November 23, 2005). And ‎in Tehran, he even attempted to impress upon the Communist children of Ernesto Che ‎Guevara through the “teachings of the prophets”, and assured the revolutionaries of Latin ‎America that the “example and model of the Islamic revolution could be replicated any ‎where in the world and we are prepared to put our experience at the disposal of the ‎world” (Fars news agency, September 23, 2007).‎

An interesting aspect of Saeed Jalili’s new post is that to become the secretary of Iran’s ‎National Security Council, this 42 year old administrator first had to have been a member ‎of the body at the time. According to the Iranian Constitution, the official members of the ‎council are to be: the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the head of the Planning and ‎Budget Organization, two representatives of the Supreme Leader, the Minister of Foreign ‎Affairs, the Minister of the Interior, the Minister of Intelligence (plus other ministers or ‎Artesh or Passdaran Guards of the Islamic Revolution commanders who could participate ‎in its meetings on an ad hoc basis on special occasions). Saeed Jalili has never had any of ‎these posts. So the only way for him to become a member is to either be a representative ‎of the Supreme Leader or become the Minister of Foreign Affairs. It should be pointed ‎out that the two latest representatives of the Leader in the council, Hassan Rowhani and ‎Ali Larijani, have already been disfavored by the President. So for Jalili to join the ‎Council according to the provisions of the Constitution, one of these two things must take ‎place in the next few days.‎

It is clear that Jalili is a trusted adjutant of the Leader. He was among the administrators ‎who after Khatami’s presidency opted to leave the Foreign Ministry to take up the post of ‎the director of current affairs at the Supreme Leaders secretariat (Reja News, October 21, ‎‎2007). Since the time that Iranian neconservatists took over the executive branch of ‎government, he was the chosen person to manage the country’s foreign policy apparatus. ‎The news websites of the conservatists speculated that he was the president’s first choice ‎to become the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Eventually however, due to the position of the ‎Leader, Manoutchehr Mottaki was appointed to the post (It should be noted that the ‎choice of the Foreign Minister, among others, requires the endorsement of the Leader as ‎well). In December 2005 some news sites close to president Ahmadinejad wrote that ‎instead of getting rid of the “technocrats” at the Foreign Ministry, Manoutchehr Mottaki ‎had given a carte blanche to former Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati (then and ‎currently senior advisor on foreign affairs to the Leader) to select and appoint the ‎departmental directors and their deputies. This led to the appointment of many posts at ‎the Foreign Ministry being occupied by individuals who did not share the President’s ‎view, with one exception: Saeed Jalili who was appointed “because of the intense ‎lobbying on behalf of the President himself.”‎

In a related news, prior to the resignation of Ali Larijani and the appointment of Saeed ‎Jalili as the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, some sources close to ‎the Iranian necons had reported that Jalili would be soon appointed to be the number two ‎man at the Foreign Ministry, while retaining his position as deputy Foreign Minister for ‎Europe and America Tehran Emrouz newspaper (October 20, 2007). At the same time, ‎the trip of the Minister of the Interior to China and the Minister of Intelligence to Saudi ‎Arabia, both of which were diplomatic missions, were interpreted by some analysts to be ‎indicative of the President’s displeasure with Manoutchehr Mottaki, and his desire to ‎change him as Foreign Minister (Sharif news, September 13, 2007).‎

This measure by Ahmadinejad to parallel the Foreign Minister is similar to the behavior ‎that he demonstrated regarding Ali Larijani. For example, when in last July the President ‎sent Mojtaba Samareh Hashemi as his “special envoy” to France to hold talks on the ‎nuclear issue, he in effect undermined Larijani’s position as the principal negotiator of ‎the regime on the nuclear issue. Another example is when, In January 2007, the ‎government spokesperson saw it necessary to announce to journalists that, “Only the ‎President announces the [country’s] nuclear position.” Another similar incident took ‎place last May when Ali Larijani announced that Iran would not be participating at the ‎Sharm al Sheikh conference in Egypt on the security of Iraq, and then hared from an Iraqi ‎journalist that an Iranian delegation was participating at the gathering, on the decision of ‎Ahmadinejad. In yet another event on the occasion of Qods Day in Tehran, Ahmadinejad ‎criticized “those who negotiated with concern and fear” at a Friday congregational prayer ‎gathering, which was interpreted to be directed at Iran’s nuclear negotiations team led by ‎Ali Larijani (in addition to his implicit attack on the former negotiations tsar Hassan ‎Rowhani whom he accused of desiring to engage in unilateral talks)… And finally, when ‎Larijani announced last week that Russian President Putin had brought a special message ‎regarding the nuclear issue, Ahmadinejad was quick to announce the next day that Putin’s ‎message was not related to the nuclear issue.‎

At the end, one must be aware that the replacement of Larijani is not the President’s final ‎surprise regarding the diplomatic events of Iran. Both inside and outside Iran, it cannot be ‎denied that in the Islamic Republic of Iran, neoconservatists rule. At least until further ‎notice. To those among them who view even fundamentalists such as Larijani to be too ‎‎“liberal”, they must be replaced by the types of Jalili. This state of affairs will certainly ‎continue until the Leader of the regime comes to believe that the dangers that Mahmud ‎Ahmadinejad posses to the survival of the Islamic republic to be really serious, which is ‎when he will unleash the President’s domestic enemies to stop him. And because of the ‎President’s humiliating actions, the number of these enemies is rapidly and incredibly on ‎the rise.‎

Post Script
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Rooz’s exclusive sources in Tehran report that Hassan Rowhani had recently told a group ‎of media managers that preparations for the forthcoming meeting with EU’s Javier ‎Solana had been made with all senior Iranian authorities, including Ali Larijani, of which ‎the Leader too had been fully knowledgeable, but while Larijani was on his way in ‎Germany for the talks, news came from Tehran that the President was against these talks ‎and so they had to be cancelled.‎