The beat goes on: Now Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is actually admitting that maybe Ayatollah Taheri had a point about the whole corruption thing:
The Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has said he agrees with some of the strong criticism made by a prominent religious leader who resigned earlier this week…
Ayatollah Jalaluddin Taheri resigned on Tuesday, denouncing the way Iran was being run and creating a political storm.
Iran’s Supreme National Security Council later banned the country’s media from reporting reaction to Ayatollah Taheri’s comments.
But in a letter – broadcast repeatedly on state radio – Ayatollah Khamenei told Ayatollah Taheri that he supported some of the strong criticism of the regime.
He also appealed for calm and accepted the resignation of the prayer leader in the central city of Isfahan.
“I also have been saying for several years that we have to mobilise all possible means to fight poverty and corruption,” Ayatollah Khamenei said.
He also addressed other matters raised by the cleric, such as creating jobs for the young.
But he warned: “Any unjust criticism encourages enemies and counter-revolutionaries who benefit from the support of the United States and Israel”.
That’s the BBC, of course. (Hello, CNN? MSNBC? NYT? WaPO? ANYBODY? )
I’d expect to see some high-profile house cleaning soon; bigwigs getting fired and the like. The interesting question will be whether they’ll toss out some token actually corrupt mullahs or whether they’ll just use this as an excuse to further purge the government of reformist elements.
Update: Aziz Poonawalla is skeptical that Khameini truly has the best interests of his citizens in mind. So am I, if I didn’t make it clear enough.
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