22nd
October 2007
While
the world catches its breath after the
sudden resignation of Iran’s top nuclear negotiator Ali
Larijani,
questions are being asked about the background and
beliefs of his successor, Saeed Jalili. The answers, it
turns out, are troubling.
Until
today, not much has been known about the 41 year old
gray-haired official. He has a PhD from Imam Sadegh
University in Tehran. As a soldier during the
Iraq-Iran war,
he apparently
survived a chemical attack
by Saddam Hussein’s forces.
Sometime
later during the war he was shot in his right leg which
according to one report
had
to be amputated.
According to the same report, since then Jalili has worn
an
artificial leg.
He is a known follower of Khomeini’s “simple living”
lifestyle philosophy. During his stint as a
Foreign Ministry
official he served at a number of departments where,
apparently, he did not make use of amenities made
available to employees. For example, he continued to
drive an inexpensive KIA Pride to work instead of
trading it in for a more luxurious car.
As the
Foreign Ministry Deputy Head of the American and
European section at the Foreign Ministry, Jalili is
known to have worked until the early hours of the
morning in his office in his efforts to strengthen the
co-operation of Iran with Southern hemisphere countries.
This was part of the
“south-south” strategy,
according to which it was believed that Ahmadinejad’s
government would be able to look for and find alliances
with countries such as Venezuela. It is also reported
that that Ahmadinejad has consulted Jalili on a number
of key moves — according to one report, Ahmadinejad’s
infamous 18 page letter to
President Bush
was,
in
fact, Jalili’s idea.
The most
worrying revelation about Jalili’s past appeared today
in the
Iran
Diplomacy
website. This Tehran-based news agency, in an article
titled “Dr Ali Leaves, Dr Saeed Enters” revealed that
for most of his career at the Foreign Ministry, Jalili
worked closely with
Mojtaba Hashemi Samare,
a leading messianic and a close ally of Ayatollah Mesbah
Yazdi, the most well-known and high-ranking messianic
cleric in Iran. The article talks about how Jalili
cooperated with Hashemi Samare in the Inspectorate
department of Ministry. It also mentions that for a
short time, Jalili also worked with Ahmadinejad.
Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi is a former member
of the Hojattieh,
a messianic splinter group which was disbanded by
Ayatollah Khomeini
in the early 1980s because of its extremist views. The
sect’s goals are to sow chaos — the goal of which is to
incite a massive war, presumably necessary to speed up
the return of the Shiite messiah, known as the Mahdi.
After
the forced disintegration of the sect, Mesbah Yazdi
moved to the
holy
city
of Qom, where he ran the
Imam
Khomeini Foundation
and the Haghaniye school. From there, he passed on his
messianic beliefs to young clerics and revolutionaries
whom he hoped one day would reach senior government
levels. One of his early successes was Hashemi Samare,
who in the early 90s managed to find a position inside
Iran’s Foreign Ministry. He soon rose through the ranks
and became one of the
key
officials
at the Ministry. His main job there was to make sure
that Iranian ambassadors were staying true to
revolutionary beliefs and Islamic ways while serving
abroad. He soon developed a much-feared reputation for
recalling diplomats and even ambassadors whom he
suspected of becoming Westernized. Some were locked
inside the basement of the Foreign Ministry for days,
where, using interrogation techniques including physical
violence, he “re-educated” them. Another important
characteristic of Hashemi Samare was that in his office,
instead of a picture of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah
Khamenei, he hung a portrait of the messianic Mesbah
Yazdi. He showed no fear about showing where his true
allegiances lay. It should be noted that the presence of
such people with such extreme views in the
Iranian government
has contributed greatly to its image as a fundamentalist
government.
During his entire career, Hashemi Samare
has looked for, and recruited fellow messianics. No one
else would be allowed to work with him. In the 1990s,
one of these associates included a very little known war
veteran and bureaucrat called Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who
for a very short while, worked for him at the Iranian
Foreign Ministry. After that Ahmadinejad was posted to
the Ardebil province where he became the governor. The
two men continuously maintained contact and upon his
return to Tehran in 1997, their friendship and
cooperation continued. Today, Hashemi Samare is
Ahmadinejad’s deputy and most trusted confidant. He can
be seen everywhere with the President, especially during
foreign travel, such as his recent trip to New York, and
when receiving for senior foreign visitors such as Putin.
Some former reformists have even said that while
praying, Ahmadinejad stands behind Hashemi Samare; an
unmistakable sign of respect and adherence which a
person can show to his mentor in Iranian religious
circles.
Jalili’s closeness with Hashemi Samare,
and his appointment as the head of Iran’s Supreme
National Security Council (SNSC) and as the head of
Iran’s nuclear negotiation team shows that the
messianics have scored another major victory in placing
one of their allies in a senior political position. Now
they can boast that, along with holding positions of
power in the Ministry of Intelligence (Gholam Hosssein
Ejehi), Ministry of Interior (Mostafa Pour Mohammadi),
and, of course, the Presidency (Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) -
by having Saeed Jalili as chief nuclear negotiator, they
now have a stronger say over how Iran deals with the
West over its nuclear program.
Despite this power, the messianics will
still find a strong obstacle, in the form of Iran’s
supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei, who, for now, has the
last word on Iran’s nuclear program.
The increasing presence of messianics and
their allies in high ranking positions inside the
Iranian government will make it much more difficult for
Western governments to believe that Iran’s leadership
will at any point in the near future be ready to find a
negotiated settlement for the current crisis.
Related Article:
IRAN
SAYS 2007 COULD BRING ISLAMIC MESSIAH
http://www.crusade-media.com/news42.html
