The Washington Institute :

By Patrick Clawson

On July 5—after twenty-four days without a public appearance, including the twelve spent at war with Israel—Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei showed up at what Iranian outlets are misleadingly calling a public setting, namely, a religious ceremony in a mourning hall. Had he continued to stay out of sight that day, there would have been much comment. After all, this was Ashura, customarily observed as the most sacred day of the Shia calendar and accompanied by huge street parades. Ashura marks the battle in which Imam Hussein was killed by the great power of the day, the Umayyad Caliphate, whose leader (Yazid) is depicted as supremely evil in holiday iconography. One might have thought Khamenei would draw parallels between that battle and today’s struggle against Israel and the United States, but he did no such thing. In fact, he did not speak at all—in contrast to his frequent addresses before large public audiences, attendance at the religious ceremony was tightly controlled.

Khamenei’s low-profile outing echoed his posture during Israel’s military campaign. Authorities offered no public word about where he was, conveniently forgetting a 2005 speech in which the Supreme Leader mocked U.S. leaders for “disappearing” after the September 11 attacks. “If a bitter experience happens to Iran,” Khamenei declared at the time, “we ourselves will don battle garb and stand ready to sacrifice.” Instead, he was nowhere to be seen, sparking rumors that his health was failing.

He did record three speeches for broadcast during the crisis—on June 13, June 18, and June 26—but they contrasted strikingly with his prewar speeches. For one thing, he appeared tired, dare one say feeble, during his June 26 address and seemed to get lost at times.

More important, the content of that third speech represented a huge shift from the past. Speaking on the first day of Muharram, a month particularly revered among Shia, he said exactly nothing about Muharram. Yet the original Persian version of his speech referred to “the nation” and “Iran” twenty times while mentioning Islam only once (sort of). His sole reference to God used the word “Parvadegar” rather than Allah, which is a very Persian way of saying “The Almighty” and extremely unusual for a cleric. Similarly, he began with “Salam” and “Dorud”—the first being the traditional Islamic greeting, and the second being the pre-Islamic greeting traditionally derided by the Islamic Republic’s core revolutionaries. He also emphasized that Iran “possesses an ancient civilization,” declaring, “Our cultural and civilizational wealth is hundreds of times greater than that of the U.S.” This statement was part of a lengthy paragraph in which not one word was said about Islam. The passage was particularly odd because Iranian clerics have long described the country’s pre-Islamic past as a time of ignorance and ridiculed those who glorify ancient Iran. 

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