Khamenei Attacks Rouhani’s Policies in New Year Speech

Yesterday, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei sharply criticized the policies of President Hassan Rouhani in his speech marking the Iranian New Year, or Nowruz. Speaking in his hometown, the northeastern shrine city of Mashhad, Khamenei said Rouhani’s policies were “injecting” the American way of thinking into Iranian society.

Earlier, Rouhani had released his own Nowruz message, in which he had called Iran’s parliamentary elections of February 26, and the relative victory of moderate and reformist candidates that day, “JCPOA 2,” -- in other words, a victory on the scale of last year’s nuclear agreement. Borrowing from the acronym “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action” he said, “it is the same Joint National Action inside the country that will start with unity, reconciliation and empathy.”

Khamenei objected. “The American policy requires that Iranians believe that we are facing a stark choice: Either compromise with the US, or continue to suffer pressures,” he said.

Without naming names, Khamenei added that there are those who say that Iran needs “JCPOA 2, 3 and 4” for the people to live comfortably, and who wrongly believe that economic problems will only be solved by negotiations with the US, and by retreating from “our positions” and “our red lines.”

Khamenei also criticized the Obama administration and expressed dissatisfaction with the implementation of the nuclear deal. “The American Treasury Secretary,” he said, “is working day and night to prevent Iran from benefitting from the results of JCPOA.”

Khamenei also hit out at President Barack Obama’s yearly New Year’s greetings to Iranians. “They sent a Nowruz message and expressed sympathy for us and for our young people,” Khamenei said, but insisted that the White House’s yearly tradition of Nowruz festivities was an attempt at “fooling the children.”

Khamenei also criticized the Rouhani government’s approach to sanctions. He said that both the consequences of sanctions and the lifting of sanctions have been blown out of proportion. He said the nuclear agreement had crossed certain “red lines,” and that the US did not keep its promises. “We can see these with our own eyes,” he said. “This is a net loss.”

Not everyone in Iranian politics agrees. Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi had said that the US and other western countries had behaved satisfactorily following the JCPOA.

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif had also said that all the red lines Khamenei had set had been observed during the negotiations. But Khamenei claimed Zarif had told him, “we could not keep certain red lines.”

As before, Khamenei called America “the enemy” and said that this enemy wants the Islamic Republic to change its nature before it can be left in peace.

“The Year of the Economy of Resistance”

Every year, Khamenei gives the year a title to communicate his agenda to politicians. He called this year on the Persian calendar “The Year of Resistance Economy and Action.” He asked the government to be serious about building an “economy of resistance,” and to listen to its hardline critics.

He said that in a “resistance” economy, “we do not need to retreat from our principles and our red lines to avoid American sanctions. By following the resistance economy...we can make the country invulnerable, and the sanctions will not make us tremble.”

Khamenei’s speech amounted both to a sharp attack on Rouhani’s economic and foreign policies and an attempt to dispel any hope of further negotiations with the US over issues other than Iran’s nuclear program.

“America is our enemy for obvious reasons,” he said. “The US presidential elections will start in a few months, and the government will change in nine months. There are no guarantees that the next government will honor even these few commitments. The American presidential candidates are now in a competition to malign Iran. When we say that America is the enemy, some people don’t like it, but this is what enmity is.”

He listed “Iranophobic propaganda,” “infiltration” and sanctions as tools used the US uses against Iran.

Khamenei’s statements do not mean that President Rouhani will abandon his policies, but it shows that disagreements between the Supreme Leader and Rouhani’s supporters have intensified. In his speech, Khamenei referred to several basic points of contention.

He said the US, as well as some people inside Iran, “want the Islamic Republic to stop supporting Palestine...to stop its political support for the oppressed people of the region like the people of Yemen, Bahrain and others...If America has its way, we must also abandon our defensive tools...little by little they would say, Why there is a Quds Force? Why do we have the Revolutionary Guards? Why must the domestic policies of the Islamic Republic and its constitution agree with Islam?”

Last week, General Ghasem Soleimani, commander of the Revolutionary Guards’ expeditionary Quds Force, warned against creating the impression that Iran is pursuing “adventures” in the region. But Khamenei insisted that Iranian foreign policy was not going to change.

Khamenei even expressed satisfaction that other countries have also learned to shout “Death to America!” and burn the American flag.