Ayatollah Ali Khamenei condemns Saudi embassy attack

Iran's highest leader strongly denounced on Wednesday a mob attack on the Saudi Arabian embassy in Tehran this month, saying the event was "very bad" and "detrimental to the country and Islam". The embassy attack followed the execution of a prominent Shia cleric in Saudi Arabia, and seemingly played into the Saudis' hands by shifting the focus of global outrage from the Sunni kingdom to Shia Iran. The attack led to Saudi Arabia and several of its allies cutting ties with Iran.

Analysts said the comments from the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, could have an eye to a meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on Tuesday, where the attack is high on the agenda. In remarks to election officials that were published on his website, Khamenei also weighed in on a dispute that has the potential to shape Iran's political course for the next several years.

He voiced strong support for a 12-member vetting committee that is said to have disqualified nearly all reformist candidates in coming elections for the Majlis, or parliament, and for the Assembly of Experts, a council that in the future will elect his successor. The vetting committee, the Guardian Council, which has been severely criticized by the reform camp, has not publicly explained its actions.

In his remarks, Khamenei said that mistakes could be made but that they “don’t justify attacks on legal entities”. If upheld, the bar on reformist candidates would mean that President Hassan Rouhani, a self-styled moderate, will in all likelihood confront a hostile parliament if he tries to introduce measures that he has promised to expand personal freedoms.

Khamenei went even further, making it clear that the reformists faced an uphill battle exerting any influence in the immediate future. “I have said that even those who are against the establishment should take part in the election,” he said. “I did not, however, mean that those who are against the establishment must be allowed to find their way into the Majlis. You do not find any country in the world where people who are against the system are allowed into any decision-making bodies.”

Khamenei has been preaching a hard line since the signing of a nuclear agreement with the United States and other nations in July, warning against any softening in Iran's anti-western stance, and has doubled down since the deal went into effect last weekend. The ayatollah complimented the actions of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Navy personnel who arrested 12 US Navy sailors this month after they entered Iran's territorial waters not far from one of its naval bases.

“What the IRGC youth did in the Persian Gulf was absolutely the right thing to do, though I have not had the time to thank them yet,” Khamenei said. “Our politicians must act in the same way. Detect the line through which they are invading and stop it with strength.”

On Monday, Iranian police said they had arrested more than 150 people in connection with the Saudi embassy attacks, which left the building in flames. While deploring the incident, Khamenei warned government officials not to “attack the devoted, revolutionary and Hezbollahi youth, merely because of events like those at the embassy of Saudi Arabia and Britain”. In 2011, crowds entered the British embassy in Tehran, leading to the severance of ties. Khamenei later denounced that assault as well, and ties were restored last year. – (New York Times)