KHAMENEI'S AND AHMADINEJAD'S TALKING POINTS ON POST-ELECTION

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 RPO DUBAI 000363

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 9/2/2019
TAGS: PGOV PREL IR
SUBJECT: KHAMENEI'S AND AHMADINEJAD'S TALKING POINTS ON POST-ELECTION
CRACKDOWN

REF: RPO DUBAI 362

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CLASSIFIED BY: Alan Eyre, Director, Iran Regional Presence
Office, DOS.
REASON: 1.4 (b),(d)

1. (C) SUMMARY: In recent public speeches both Supreme Leader
Khamenei and President Ahmadinejad have each repeated key
talking points about the post-election unrest. Both have
emphasized that this unrest is the result of a vast long-planned
conspiracy by Iran's foreign enemies to besmirch the resounding
regime victory in the June 12 vote, and to topple the Islamic
Republic from within via a "soft coup." Khamenei has stressed
that all violations of the law will be dealt with within the
legal process. While admitting that Iranian government
officials did violate the law, most noticeably at the Kahrizak
detention center and during the June 15 storming of University
of Tehran dormitories, he notes that such violations however
pale into unimportance relative to the injustices done to the
regime by those seeking to topple it. As the September 23
opening of the University School year approaches, Khamenei has
also stressed the key role that college students and professors
will play on the 'front lines of the Soft War,' while also
noting that university-level humanities courses could be another
insidious vehicle for the import of Western and secular ideas
into Iran. For his part, Ahmadinejad has focused on defending
his last four years, while also vowing to continue the fight
against high-level corruption amidst the rich and powerful,
which many analysts read as an allusion to Ayatollah Rafsanjani
and his peers. In distinction to Khamenei, Ahmadinejad has
ascribed the Kahrizak and Tehran University incidents to "the
enemy." END SUMMARY.




2. (U) Both Supreme Leader Khamenei and President Ahmadinejad
have made a number of recent public comments in which they have
referred to the post-election unrest, with the major ones as
follows:



KHAMENEI AUGUST 26 STUDENT SPEECH




3. (U) On August 26 Supreme Leader Khamenei addressed an Eftar
dinner for selected (hardcore conservative) University student
groups, with his speech preceded by speeches by representatives
of these groups. This was the first time that Khamenei had
addressed student groups since the post-election unrest to
include the altercations at Tehran University. The tone of
these student speeches was uniformly strident, with the students
criticizing virtually every organ of the Iranian government
except for the Supreme Leader, to include (inter alia):



- complaining about the June 15 attacks at Tehran University and
other universities;



- calling for an investigation of Ayatollah Rafsanjani's son
Mehdi Hashemi and the "mafia controlling Azad University" to
include its President Abdollah Jasebi, based on the recent
confessions made by those being tried for post-election
disturbances;



- questioning the loyalty of both the Majlis leadership and the
membership of the Expediency Council;



-severely criticizing the performance of President Ahmadinejad,
his Ninth Administration, the influence of the "Kordan, Rahimi
and Mashaei" clique, and his Tenth Cabinet nominations;



- demanding the expulsion of the British Ambassador from Tehran;



- claiming Presidential candidate Mir Hossin Mousavi and former
President Khatami were involved in plots against Iran and called
for their being tried in court (which drew loud applause from
the student audience).


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4. (U) Khamenei's response to this young audience, composed of
many of his most fervent supporters, was that: - Decisive action
will be taken against those involved in the post-election
disturbances, to include those 'behind the scenes,' but this
action must be based on proof and evidence, not on rumors. In
this regard, he was not accusing anyone specific of being
foreign agents "because such a thing has not been proven to me
and I can't talk about something which hasn't been proven"
(COMMENT: This statement was seized on by Western press as
indicating that Khamenei was in some way exonerating opposition
leaders of being foreign agents. In the context of his emphasis
on the need for proof, all he was saying was that he could not
currently make such a claim, as it had not yet been proved. END
COMMENT)



- The incidents at Tehran University and Kahrizak will be dealt
with decisively and those who violated the law will be punished,
regardless of their organizational affiliation;



- The Kahrizak and Tehran University transgressions were
unimportant relative to the injustice done to the Islamic
Republic of Iran's reputation due to these post-election
disturbances, which besmirched the epic June 12 election.



- Ahmadinejad had his strong and weak points, but as Khamenei
does not publicly focus on the deficiencies of government
officials when private correction can be more effective;



- Today the Islamic Republic was involved in a great "soft war,"
and these students were the young officers on the "front line of
this war."



KHAMENEI AUGUST 30 UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR SPEECH




5. (U) On August 30 Supreme Leader Khamenei gave a speech to
university professors in which he expressed his deep concern
with the fact that out of a national university population of
3.5 million, approximately two million were studying humanities,
much of which was based on 'Western, materialistic' (vice
Islamic) principles. He again alluded to the "Soft War" being
waged against Iran, adding that these university professors were
the "commanding officers" in this war. He also repeated his
'law and order' statement that the government will deal with all
those who have broken the law in the post-election unrest.



AHMADINEJAD STATEMENTS




6. (C) At an August 26 Eftar dinner with Executive Branch
workers, President Ahmadinejad defended his first term record,
saying that his Ninth Administration had gotten a "good grade"
from the Supreme Leader and from the Iranian nation, and that in
his second term he would continue to work for the people and for
justice. He also said that he would continue to fight against
corruption and that "the fight against lawbreakers must start
with those who imagine themselves as 'owners of the country,'" a
phrase that many observers assume refers to Hashemi Rafsanjani.



AHMADINEJAD AUGUST 28 FRIDAY PRAYER




7. (U) On Friday August 28 President Ahmadinejad spoke at
Tehran's Friday Prayers (NOTE: Normally he wouldn't speak, but
because it was government week he and other senior
administration officials spoke at various Friday Prayer events).
His speech largely extolled his efforts and achievements over

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the previous four years. Concerning the election and the
post-election disturbances, he also described a vast Western-led
conspiracy which mobilized all its resources, both inside and
outside Iran, to derail the Revolution via the most recent
Presidential elections. Addressing those 'Satans' behind this
plan, he added that Iran would agree to talk and deal with them
only if they acted honestly and made up for these actions;
otherwise Iran would deal severely with them.




8. (C) In contrast to what Supreme Leader Khamenei said two days
earlier, Ahmadinejad claimed that the Kahrizak and Tehran
University atrocities were part of the "enemy's scenario" and
done by those seeking to overthrow the government (COMMENT:
Although Ahmadinejad's comments on the culpability for Kahrizak
and Tehran University are incongruent with Khamenei's, from the
overall context it seems unlikely that he is publicly
challenging the Supreme Leader: it is more a difference in
rhetoric). As in his earlier speech, Ahmadinejad again vowed to
take the fight to rich and powerful lawbreakers (read:
Rafsanjani),saying that "if the holders of power and influence
are exempt from punishment and only the weak are punished, " the
Islamic Republic would not endure.




9. (C) COMMENT: Both Khamenei's and Ahmadinejad's public
position is that the post-election unrest is due to a vast
western-led conspiracy to topple the Islamic Republic from
within, as part of a "soft war" or "velvet revolution." While
there is some daylight between these two on smaller issues such
as culpability for incidents at Kahrizak and Tehran University,
it doesn't seem that this is as yet a significant source of
tension between them. However, given the nature of their
collective base of support, it is a real question as to what
extent those government entities responsible for these actions
will be prosecuted (according to some reformist websites, at
least some of those removed from Kahrizak for these violations
have quietly returned to work). If contemporary Iranian history
is a guide, then it is likely that a few 'bad apples' will be
identified and sacrificed for the greater good, much like the
case of Intelligence Ministry official Saeed Imami, who took the
fall for the 1990s 'Serial Murders' of dissident Iranian
intellectuals, and then 'committed suicide' in prison. Indeed,
the recent Judiciary announcement that an investigative
committee is being formed to look into post-election unrest
(reftel) could be to be laying the groundwork for such a
strategy. However, Khamenei faces the delicate balancing act of
trying to find a scapegoat for these violations who is high
enough to be credible to those aggrieved elites offended by
these transgressions but low enough not to alienate the IRGC
intel/security cabal whose support he finds essential.




10. (C) It is worth noting however that the 'show trials' of
those rounded up after the election are still ongoing, and no
one within the ruling elite has disputed the veracity of the
confessions being extracted from key defendants. Indeed, as
many IRPO interlocutors point out, the key dynamic playing out
right now is between Khamenei and Ahmadinejad on the one hand
and Rafsanjani on the other, with Rafsanjani supporting Mousavi,
Khatami and Karrubi behind the scenes while also seeking to
rally the clerical elite against Supreme Leader Khamenei and
Ahmadinejad. As such, the trial 'confessions' that implicate
Rafsanjani's son Mehdi in various illegalities are a key tool in
this ongoing struggle. END COMMENT.
EYRE