NEW YORK TIMES: …“Our leader deliberately takes ambiguous stances, because our enemies, including the United States, constantly shift their positions,” said Hossein Ghayyoumi, a cleric and politician who supports a nuclear deal. “In politics, details and red lines can shift from time to time.”
This ambiguity serves multiple purposes. In Iran’s opaque political system, the supreme leader presides over a spectrum of factions all vying for power, influence and money. By weaving back and forth — praising the “patriotism” of the nuclear negotiators, for instance, while drawing “red lines” in the negotiations — he keeps the moderate opposition happy while placating the hard-liners in the clergy and the military.
For Mr. Khamenei, the ultimate goal is government survival, in both domestic politics and foreign relations. While he has a clear national objective in the nuclear talks — freeing his country from damaging economic sanctions while preserving an independent nuclear energy program — he needs to be careful about his approach, so as not to be vulnerable to criticism in the political realm, particularly from hard-line conservatives… (more)
