Tehran Media Speculate On Security Chief’s Dismissal
Iranian media are speculating on the implications of Ali Shamkhani’s replacement with Ali Akbar Ahmadian as secretary of the supreme national security council.
Iranian media are speculating on the implications of Ali Shamkhani’s replacement with Ali Akbar Ahmadian as secretary of the supreme national security council.
Etemad, one of the two leading reformist dailies in Tehran wrote in a commentary on Tuesday that Shamkhani’s replacement might have been the result of fears on the part of hardliners that following his success in forging the Beijing-brokered deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia in March, he could have played a key role in reviving the 2015 nuclear deal with the United States.
According to Etemad, "the change was swift and odd." But this was not the only thing that was strange about the shift. The development completely played out on Twitter, a social media platform that is officially banned in Iran. Yet, first Shamkhani alluded to his departure by tweeting a piece of Persian poetry. Then Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei announced the replacement on his Twitter, and finally Ahmadian started his mission as security chief by tweeting a verse in Arabic from the holy Koran.
Subsequently, social media users came up with all sorts of analyses. Some even said it was the end of Shamkhani’s political career and linked his removal from the key post to his family's alleged financial corruption. However, Khamenei quickly appointed him as his political adviser and a member of the Expediency Council, some sort of an upper house in Iran's parliamentary system.
Within a few hours, many politicians including the hawkish Saeed Jalili, a Paydari Party figurehead, and a former nuclear negotiator, were mentioned as possible candidates for the post. Khamenei’s choice, however, was more pragmatic.
Another odd thing was the Raisi administration's absolute silence on the matter, other than the releasing an official announcement everyone knew was coming from Khamenei's house rather than the presidential palace.
Etemad pointed out that the execution of Shamkhani's former deputy Alireza Akbari, on charges of espionage, may have played a part in his replacement, as his hardliner political opponents were calling for his removal in recent months for the same reason.
Tehran's other leading reformist daily Shargh wrote in a long commentary on Tuesday that the change was expected for a long time. But it also pointed out that it marked the 10th anniversary of Shamkhani's presence at the security council. Khamenei usually changes his appointees at different institutions after five or 10 years. However, there are exceptions such as his representative to ultraconservative Kayhan newspaper, Hossein Shariatmadari who has kept his posts for a few decades.
Shargh wrote that regardless of Shamkhani's denial of his links to his former deputy Akbari, it was clear that the system was getting rid of Shamkhani at such a prominent position. The move, according to Shargh, started when a week after Akbari's execution, vice President Mohammad Mokhber fired Shamkhani and his relatives from the Arvand Free Trade Zone in Khuzestan.
According to Shargh, Paydari had a role in all those developments that were clearly part of the usual factional infighting in Iran. Some hardliners such as former lawmaker Hamid Rasaee openly called for Shamkhani's removal.
Critics on social media have opined that Shamkhani's appointment as Khamenei's political adviser does not necessarily mean anything. They pointed out that former Prime Minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi who has been under house arrest more than a decade now, is still officially Khamenei's political adviser! And with the caliber of other Expediency Council members, it is obvious that the appointment is only an excuse to keep Shamkhani under control like others such as former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Nonetheless, Donya-ye Eghtesad newspaper wrote on Tuesday that Shamkhani who once ran for president as a reformist candidate in 2001, is likely to prepare himself for the next presidential election in 2025. The daily pointed out that Shamkhani is not one of those politicians who would sit at the Expediency Council and do nothing.
“From the beginning of this parliament [2020], based on information I had, I believed that it is a revolutionary parliament, and now after three years I reiterate that,” Khamenei told 290 members of the legislature.
The parliament, dominated by hardliners, passed a bill in December 2020 dubbed the ‘Strategic Action To Eliminate Sanctions and Defend Iranian Nation's Interests.’ The bill authorized higher-level uranium enrichment to force the United States to lift economic sanctions imposed in 2018, when former President Donald Trump withdrew from the JCPOA nuclear agreement.
The bill also mandated restrictions on nuclear monitoring by the United Nations watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Since the passage of the law, Iran has further restricted international monitoring and inspections, adding to the complicated dynamics of renewing the JCPOA.
The current parliament was elected in February 2020 in a controversial vote when the Guardian Council, loyal to Khamenei, banned hundreds of relatively moderate candidates and allowed hardliners to gain a strong majority in the legislature. Few doubt that Khamenei was not aware or did not approve the engineering of the 2020 elections to pack the parliament with hardliners.
The timing of the bill in December 2020 was curious. The proposal emerged in parliament in early November just days after the US presidential election and Joe Biden’s victory. In September of that year, Biden had already announced thatif elected he would return to the JCPOA agreement to correct Trump’s “reckless” policy of dumping the nuclear deal that capped Iran’s uranium enrichment.
The Iranian regime knew that the incoming Biden administration wanted to restore the JCPOA, which would lift crippling sanctions, but nevertheless decided to pass the parliamentary law that made negotiations more difficult.
The bill’s stipulation about higher levels of uranium enrichment was not an empty negotiating tactic. Iran actually began enrichment at 20 percent in early 2021, breaking the JCPOA limit of 3.65 percent. Subsequently, enrichment was increased to 60 percent during the talks, and by all estimates, Tehran now has enough fissile material for at least two nuclear bombs. Tehran also gradually restricted IAEA monitoring access to its nuclear facilities, introducing another complicating factor into the JCPOA talks.
The government of President Hassan Rouhani initially opposed the legislation, saying it will complicate talks, but the hardliners went ahead anyway.
However, Khamenei Wednesday told lawmakers, “The Strategic Action law brought the country out of a wandering state in the nuclear issue. This law fully clarified what we needed to do.”
Negotiation to revive the JCPOA began in Vienna on April 7, 2021, between the members of the JCPOA, Iran, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia and China, with the US on the side lines as Tehran rejected any direct talks with Washington.
After 11 months of talks, the Vienna process ended without success in March 2022 after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Subsequent efforts by the European Union to bridge the gaps failed and the talks reached a deadlock in September 2020.
In the meantime, Iran’s economic crisis triggered by US sanctions got much worse, with annual inflation nearing 70 percent and the national currency losing much of its value. This and continued domestic repression led to nationwide protests in the fall of 2022, destabilizing the clerical regime, with no immediate prospect of ending sanctions.
From the US to China, the young ruler is trying to show his force in a region where power plays are constantly shifting. Most recently, that power play seems to be blowing up a little, with the UAE’s President Mohammed Bin Zayed shunning the recent Arab League Summit in Saudi, following MBS boycotting a meeting in January of GCC heads of state amidst clashes over policy including oil sales and the Yemen war, as the two vie for GCC hegemony.
But it is Saudi’s dancing between Iran and Israel which is causing all eyes to be on Riyadh. Just weeks after the detente between Saudi and Iran, breaking years of tension between the two regional powers, it appears MBS has received a call from Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Eli Cohen. Such a move would have been followed by a torrent of abuse from Iran had this happened just weeks earlier, but as things are shifting in MBS’s favor, Iran has largely remained quiet.
At the Arab League Summit, Qatar’s ruling Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani walked out before a speech given by the newly readmitted Bashar al-Assad in a stand against the Syrian dictator. While Al-Thani welcomes warming ties with Saudi and Qatar’s Gulf neighbors after the recent lifting of the embargo, the gas-rich state still flexed its muscles to show Riyadh is not calling the shots in Qatar’s regional relations.
Confrontation with America under the Biden administration, stronger alignment with China, expanding relations with Russia and inviting Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky to the Arab League meeting, show MBS playing an interesting game on the global stage for the world’s largest oil exporter.
Iran’s Etemad newspaper wrote of the shifting sands: “From the point of view of some experts, this action of bin Salman is reminiscent of the policy of reducing problems with all regional and international parties to zero, while others consider it to be stepping on the edge of an abyss that can destroy all plans even with one step or one wrong behavior.”
Warning of the risks at stake, moving between some of the world’s biggest rivals, Etemad said of MBS: “Whether in the domestic dimension or in the regional and international arenas … he loves to walk in minefields and play with contradictions.”
While the Saudi media describe his behavior as the creation of a new Arab order, MBS the flag bearer of the beginning of a new chapter in the region and the man to see an end to its conflicts, others see his position between democracies and dictatorships as a major gamble.
The UAE has long shown itself as a diplomatic kingmaker in the region, the first country to sign the US-brokered Abraham Accords in 2020, it also made peace with Iran last year, long before Saudi. Meanwhile, Qatar and Egypt also pride themselves as long-standing regional peacemakers and want their share of the peace-pie before they hand the reins to MBS. It is unlikely that any of these nations will be happy to see MBS call the shots, in spite of regional frustrations with the Biden administration and the growing influence of Russia and China, the latter of which played a significant role in the Saudi-Iran detente.
“It is not believed that Muhammad bin Salman has the ability to play on several ropes for a long time,” wrote Etemad.
MBS is still seen by the West as a brutal dictator responsible for the likes of mass displacement as whole tribes are removed to make way for the NEOM development and executions in spite of a sharp PR campaign to suggest the country is undergoing major reform and opening up to the world with a raft of jaw-dropping mega projects.