Ayatollah Ali Khamenei delivers a blunt message about Zionists on Wednesday, but an Israeli professor says it may indicate Iran is set to negotiate.The Associated Press
As leading world powers and Iran resume negotiations in Geneva over Tehran's disputed nuclear energy program, officials of the Islamic Republic are driving home their bargaining points in a clever international media campaign that sends out a rather mixed message.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei launched an unusually blistering attack Wednesday on Israel, the United States and France, before an intimidating assembly of 50,000 Basij militiamen.
"Zionist officials cannot be called humans," the ayatollah told them in a speech broadcast live on state TV. "They are like animals, some of them" and are "doomed to failure and annihilation."
The Israelis "malevolently claim that Iran is a threat to the entire world," he said.
"No!" he shouted angrily. "The threat is the Zionist regime and some of its supporters." To which the Basij crowd burst into cries of "Death to Israel" and "Death to America."
The vilification sounded more like ex-president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad than the moderate message Iran has conveyed since the election of President Hassan Rouhani.
At the same time, however, Iran's suave Foreign Minister, Javad Zarif, presented an alternative message in a five-minute video posted on YouTube.
"What is dignity," he asks, as the opening music in the slick production fades out. "What is respect? Are they negotiable? Is there a price tag?"
Mr. Zarif urges his audience to "imagine being told that you can't do what everyone else is doing; what everyone else is allowed to do." Then he asks: "Will you back down? Would you relent? Or would you stand your ground?"
In reassuring even tones, Mr. Zarif rests Iran's case to enrich uranium on the free will with which all people are endowed.
While the Foreign Minister calls for settling differences through negotiations among equals, Ayatollah Khamenei argues that others don't treat Iran that way.
"We want to have friendly relations with all nations and peoples," the Supreme Leader said. "The Islamic system isn't even hostile to the nation of America."
However, when it comes to Washington's dealing with Iran, "the American government is arrogant, malicious and vindictive," he said.
As for the French, he added, they are "not only succumbing to the United States, but they are kneeling before the Israeli regime."
In the talks with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany (the P5+1 group), the ayatollah said he insists that Iran's negotiators "not retreat one step from the nuclear rights of the nation."
"The red lines," as he called them, "must be observed."
So, which one speaks for Iran?
The Supreme Leader has almost absolute authority but doesn't dirty his hands with details. They're left to people such as the President and Foreign Minister.
So they both speak for Iran, albeit in different tones.
Do Khamenei's words make a deal impossible?
On the contrary, they might just make a deal more likely.
Brandon Friedman, a researcher at Tel Aviv University's Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, told The Jerusalem Post that the hardline speech could be intended "to set the stage for a deal."
If Iran is going to compromise with the United States, a.k.a. "the big Satan," then its leadership needs to reinforce its contempt for "the little Satan, or Israel," he said.
"As Iran approaches some kind of détente with the West," Mr. Friedman warned, "we can expect its rhetoric on Israel to become harsher."
British Foreign Secretary William Hague also played down the ayatollah's rhetoric.
"There is an opportunity here to make an agreement and that remains the case whatever commentary is going on around the world or whatever fresh statements are made."
Are the long-term goals of the two sides really compatible?
That depends: If the goal of the P5+1 is to prevent Iran from ever having the capability to produce a bomb (the goal sought by Israel, Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf Arab states), the answer is no. Such an aim can't be reconciled with Iran's goal, which is to maintain at least some capability to enrich and store its own uranium and probably to produce plutonium.
However, if the goal is to prevent Iran from ever obtaining the bomb, then the aims of the two sides might be reconciled. Rather than removing every trace of Iran's nuclear infrastructure, this situation would rely on safeguards, transparency and vigilant inspection to ensure no weapons are produced.
In this scenario, U.S. officials say they want to ensure that if the Iranians decide to race for a bomb, Washington would know about it in time to react.
Do all countries have a right to enrich uranium?
Article IV of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty recognizes "the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes …."
However, the exercise of that right must be in conformity with other articles that prohibit states from acquiring nuclear weaponry.
It has been argued that Iran's refusal to comply with UN Security Council resolutions ordering it to cease uranium enrichment and to open all facilities to inspection have negated Iran's right under Article IV.