WSJ: Iranians Starting to Notice Nepo Babytollah’s Absence

Did the Wall Street Journal discover sarcasm over the weekend? Or do Iranian “negotiators” really believe in Mojtaba Claus?

With talks going nowhere, the WSJ’s reporting team offers a look at the supposed friction within the regime remnants, centering on Beef Supreme Mojtaba Khamenei. No one has heard a public peep out of the Nepo Babytollah since the strike on his father’s palace at the start of the war, except (supposedly) IRGC chief Ahmad Vahidi, who’s used Mojtaba as his personal sockpuppet to create a flat-out military junta. Iranian officials insist that Khamenei The Slightly Less Deader is still alive and “managing” regime affairs, but his only public statements come through IRGC media outlets.

Yesterday, the WSJ reported that this is only now becoming a problem for so-called moderates who want to find an accommodation with the US before the Iranian economy totally collapses. And now, even hard-line supporters are beginning to ask questions as the internecine fighting between factions heats up:

His absence is becoming a bigger problem for Tehran as it tries to negotiate an end to the war. Iran’s rulers have shown unity during the fighting, coordinating their political messaging and maintaining command and control over their armed forces. But they are fracturing over how far to go to strike a deal with the U.S.

Khamenei’s protracted absence from the public eye has been particularly unsettling for his hard-line supporters who are questioning the legitimacy of the talks, said Arash Azizi, a historian and lecturer at Yale University who focuses on Iran and has reviewed group chats of hard-line regime supporters.

Iran’s hard-liners have taken aim at more moderate Iranian politicians who are playing a prominent role in talks—most notably parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who they see as too compromising.

“They wonder about where he is,” Azizi said of the new supreme leader. “They’re dismayed by what they see as Ghalibaf and the team leading the National Security Council negotiating and giving too many concessions to the U.S.”

Let’s recap a bit. Moderates wonder why Khamenei hasn’t shown proof of life to endorse Vahidi’s junta fully. Vahidi’s hard-line supporters wonder why the Cardboardatollah hasn’t spoken up to denounce the moderate “negotiators” who are still talking with the US. The solution to this fracture is as obvious as it is impossible – have Khamenei make a public appearance to settle the question. Even if he is disfigured and maimed, if he’s actively “managing” the regime, he can do that much. As for his personal safety, other regime leaders make quite a show of public defiance … so why not the Supreme Leader, supposedly anointed by Allah?

This demonstrates two real problems for the regime. Dead or alive, the Nepo Babytollah isn’t running anything, and everyone within the regime knows it. If Khamenei had any capacity at all, Vahidi or Pezeshkian would have paraded him out, even in a hospital bed, to bless whichever alleged faction Khamenei supports. Vahidi’s using the Khamenei name as a beard for his full-out power grab, and to the extent that splits actually exist within the regime, the dissenters can’t expose it without provoking a full-out popular revolt and utter collapse. 

Second: There are no “moderates” in this regime. If there were, those factions would have flipped to lead a popular revolt against Vahidi’s military junta. Ghalibaf, Pezeshkian, and Vahidi all eat from the same rice bowl. The myth of regime “moderates” arose after the death of Ruhollah Khomeini, but regime moderates are the Sasquatches of Iranian policy in the West – much hypothesized but yet to have even one verified sighting. 

What this means is that the “talks” through Pakistan were and would always be a colossal waste of time. Abbas Araghchi and Ghalibaf essentially ran a good cop/bad cop fraud, attempting to get concessions from Donald Trump rather than offer any themselves. The Iranians have always used the “better make nice with the moderates or else” strategy in dealing with the West; that’s how they got the green light for nuclear weapons (and lots of cash) with the JCPOA. That deal was supposed to energize the moderates and sideline the hardliners, and also encourage the Iranian mullahcracy to turn away from terrorism. Instead, it infused billions of dollars into the IRGC without any reliable verification of compliance with its terms, which fueled even more aggression from Iranian proxies Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis in the decade afterward. 

This WSJ report suffers from the same mythology. There may certainly be moderate Iranians, but they are not part of the regime and likely oppose the entire corrupt cult of power and death. Even the merchant class, which had supported the regime until the currency collapse in December, may be finally questioning the claimed authority of Vahidi now. However, any figures within the regime owe their positions to the death cult and understand perfectly where their fortunes lie. They are convinced that the regime has a divine grant of authority and that an occasional offering of taqiyya is all that’s needed to hoodwink the West into passive neglect of its own survival. 

Up to now, these regime figures have been largely correct, and that includes in the past four weeks. Let’s hope that Donald Trump has learned the lesson about chasing Sasquatches in the Iranian death cult better than the Wall Street Journal has. 

Editor’s Note: For decades, former presidents have been all talk and no action. Now, Donald Trump is eliminating the threat from Iran once and for all. 

Help us report the truth about the Trump administration’s decisive actions to keep Americans safe and bring peace to the world. Join HotAir VIP and use promo code FIGHT to get 60% off your VIP membership.