Is Washington Prepared for a Post-Khamenei Iran?

America does not understand Iran (if the baseline criteria to qualify a country for U.S. invasion is "know thy enemy," then Iran is hereby disqualified). Nor does it fully comprehend Iran's multilayered, complex leadership. For one, Americans pay far too much attention to the ranting of its lunatic president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose anti-U.S. and anti-Israel screeds, while disturbing, hardly constitute Iranian foreign policy.

Real power lies with Iran's Supreme Leader, not its president. Hence, Washington should pay closer attention to the words of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who remains the final arbiter of all foreign policy matters. Yet his approach to world politics has been anything but consistent. He pushed ahead with Iran's nuclear program in the face of international opposition, but also showed flickering signs of a willingness to suspend it. He repeatedly blew off entreaties to deal positively with the "Great Satan," while periodically dropping hints he might favor restoring relations with Washington. Khamenei condemned the 9/11 attacks, and a few months later, there was limited but successful U.S.-Iran cooperation on Afghanistan (most experts say President Bush's 2002 "Axis of Evil" speech nixed any hope of meaningful rapprochement). An Iranian overture for dialogue with the United States, channeled through a Swiss emissary shortly after the Iraq War began, was reportedly rebuffed by American diplomats.

Relations between Ahmadinejad and Khamenei have also been strained. After his first batch of anti-Israel comments, the president was reined in by the Supreme Leader, who publicly reiterated Iran's policy of nonaggression to all UN members. Khamenei also preferred less explosive language to describe Iran's nuclear program, while continually asserting his country's right to peaceful atomic power. But he is no peacenik or democrat. Sure, while casting his vote in local elections in December 2006, he said the Iranian public "can play a major role in sealing the fate of the country and nation and influence the county's decision-making process," but Khamenei also said he was not "prepared to allow flawed and non-divine perspectives and ideas that are aimed at enhancing the power of the individual to dictate [Iran's] social and political lives." He has appointed reactionary clerics to powerful positions and purposefully given the post of presidency little power or room to maneuver. His powerful Revolutionary Guard Corps have stamped out student protests and clamped down on human rights activists (as the recent spate of arrests of Iranian-Americans demonstrates).

Hence, that is what makes the death this week of Ali Meshkini so significant (he died of lung disease). The ayatollah chaired the Assembly of Experts, an 86-member body that selects the country's Supreme Leader. His likely successor is rumored to be Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the former president and behind-the-scenes powerbroker, not to mention once one of the world's richest men, according to Forbes. Rafsanjani also chairs something called the Expediency Council, whose powers he has expanded (the body arbitrates between Iran's parliament and the Guardian Council, a powerful body that has veto power over all parliamentary decisions). Khamenei's health has taken a turn for the worse (earlier this year he dodged a Mark Twain moment when rumors of his demise turned out to be grossly exaggerated by false media reports). If Khamenei checks out, he has no clear successor. Rafsanjani could pull a Cheney -- that is, tasked with the job of selecting a supreme leader, he might reach for the closest mirror and choose himself (though his religious credentials have been called into question). Another possibility, experts say, is replacing the single post of Supreme Leader with a body of Grand Ayatollahs.

Regardless, Americans should take note of the fact that within Iran's leadership, there are a number of competing foreign policy agendas (for instance, the views of Iran's foreign ministry and Revolutionary Guard Corps toward Iraq often clash). Washington should wake up to these divisions and not put so much stock in the disturbing musings of Ahmadinejad. Nor should it expect the regime to fall anytime soon. "Abrupt domestic change in Iran is unlikely in the near term and would not necessarily lead to an improvement of the status quo," writes Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment "The only groups that are both armed and organized at the moment are not liberal democrats but the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Bassij militia." Yet that is hardly to say Americans should not prepare for the day when the position of Iran's Supreme Leader changes hands, which may come sooner rather than later.