It’s An Illusion That Khamenei Could Enter Genuine Negotiations – OpEd

In 1988 (1367 in the Iranian calendar), when Ayatollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, was forced to accept a ceasefire in the eight-year war with Iraq, all of the regime’s strategic resources and capabilities had been exhausted, and the battlefronts were running out of manpower. This retreat meant abandoning slogans such as “War, war until victory,” “The road to Jerusalem passes through Karbala,” and “War until the last house in Tehran.” The war had cost more than one trillion dollars and left nearly two million dead and disabled on Iran’s side. Khomeini described this retreat as “drinking the poisoned chalice.”

To compensate for this strategic defeat, he resorted to genocide. Through a religious decree (fatwa), Khomeini ordered the massacre of more than 30,000 political prisoners in 1988—prisoners who had remained steadfast in their commitment to the struggle for freedom. Many of them had already completed their prison sentences, yet they were executed following this decree. About 90 percent of those executed were members of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), whom Khomeini accused of promoting peace and seeking an end to the war.

Today, Iran’s dictator Ali Khamenei is facing a similar situation. He cannot abandon the nuclear project, which has imposed costs exceeding two trillion dollars on the country, nor can he retreat from the development of the missile program. The reason is clear: unlike Khomeini, Khamenei no longer has the power to intimidate and silence society for years through a massive bloodbath—especially since more than three decades have passed and Iranian society, after several uprisings, has become far more aware and vigilant.

Moreover, Khamenei, like Khomeini, does not possess sufficient influence, legitimacy, or authority within the regime’s structure to keep its various factions united around himself if he were to retreat from the regime’s core slogans. In reality, stepping back from the nuclear or missile programs would crack the regime’s “hard core”—the main pillar of its survival—and could accelerate its collapse. This hard core is largely made up of torturers, perpetrators of killings and massacres, and the security and intelligence apparatus.

Therefore, the idea that Iran’s dictator could enter genuine negotiations or abandon his nuclear and missile programs is nothing but an illusion. Khamenei will not accept the shorter and less costly path to his own downfall—namely, retreating from these projects through negotiation. And if one day he is forced to give up the nuclear and missile programs, it will mean that his regime is effectively on the verge of overthrow, with only one step left before its fall.