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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Khamenei About To Kick The Bucket?
2009-10-13
The health of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei ...has turned critical as was reported to our Central location at 11:30 last night (near midnight) by one of our influential supporters. It stated that the overall health of the Supreme Ruler Seyed Ali (Khamenei) ...has become critical.

At around 8 p.m. when his health failed, three of his treating physicians...were summoned to his bedside. On their arrival into his private room, everyone including his family were told to leave the room. After the three physicians examined Khamenei for about 45 minutes and emerged, they instructed that only immediate family members (wife and children) were to enter his room and not even his staff to provide him with reports.

As has been reported in various newsletters and publications, some three days ago Khamenei issued his last will and testament in which he asked people to pray for him and to ask Allah to forgive him his sins, including those which he may have inadvertently committed and does not remember.
Something about ordering attacks on the protesters and acquiescing to their vile treatment upon imprisonment? Yes, he'll want forgiveness for those.
Posted by:Anonymoose

#8   no one individual could ever replace
Khomeini as Supreme Leader, predicting instead a council of three or five religious leaders
would have to rule.

It seems to me the Romans tried that after the murder of Julius Caesar. As I recall, one died quietly, Mark Antony retired briefly to Egypt as a guest of his friend, Queen Cleopatra, and the future Augustus Caesar swept the board. Only, lots of people were killed to accomplish that, some of them innocent bystanders.
Posted by: trailing wife   2009-10-13 15:08  

#7  "Precisely because there are no obvious successors to Khamenei, the prospect of the
supreme leadership being replaced by a shura (consultative) council is discussed with
increased frequency. The idea is not new and was considered after KhomeiniÂ’s death, since
many believed the supreme leadership was “a robe designed only for Khomeini.” As president,
Khamenei himself once told a Western reporter that no one individual could ever replace
Khomeini as Supreme Leader, predicting instead a council of three or five religious leaders
would have to rule.
Who would be selected to compose the shura council is the key question. Constitutionally
the selection process falls under the jurisdiction of the Assembly of Experts, an 86-cleric karim sadjadpour body headed by Rafsanjani and composed largely of septuagenarian, conservative clerics.
Reformists talk about a triumvirate composed of Rafsanjani, Khatami, and Mehdi Karroubi,
a moderate cleric who served as speaker of the parliament and narrowly lost to Ahmadinejad
in the first round of the June 2005 elections. This would be unacceptable to hardliners, who
would prefer conservatives like AyatollahsMesbah Yazdi, Shahroudi, and Jannati, a member
of the Guardian Council, who are equally unacceptable to moderates.
Aside from the difficulties of reaching a consensus regarding the makeup of the shura
council, the replacement of the Supreme Leader with a shura council is currently impeded
by the Islamic RepublicÂ’s constitution, which states specifically that the Leader be an individual.
But political expediency trumps the constitution in the Islamic Republic; a constitutional
amendment adjusting the requirements for Supreme Leader is precisely what enabled
Khamenei to become Leader.
While the fight for succession is highly unpredictable and could get fierce, in some ways
KhameneiÂ’s weakness has ironically been the Islamic RepublicÂ’s strength; if his reign has
proven one thing, itÂ’s that the Islamic RepublicÂ’s stability is not contingent upon having a popular,
charismatic Leader. The predictions frequently made during the Khomeini era—that
the Leader’s death would bring about the regime’s demise—are no longer made with regards
to Khamenei."

reading khamenei (http://www.carnegieendowment.org/files/sadjadpour_iran_final2.pdf)
Posted by: newc   2009-10-13 13:57  

#6  who is next?

Let's see.... There is Ali Sistani - already very influencial in Iran, Rafsanjani, Sharoudi?

I do not know where or even if Ahmadinejad falls into bloodline, and he is already ranked by rafsanjani. I doubt Mousavi qualifies either.

In either case, the IRGC (revolutionary Guard) will be pulling some rank, and have influence over the position.

One of the things discussed during the election - and this kind of came from Sistani was to eliminate the position totally to give the counsel more power. (http://en.rian.ru/world/20090622/155318054.html)

It shall be another interesting time in Iran.
Count on Sistani to be lead weather in that position or not.
Posted by: newc   2009-10-13 13:39  

#5  Apparently, Khamenei has outlived expectations because of his longstanding colon cancer.

This also points out the nagging fact that because of a peculiarity of Shiite Islam, homosexuality is seen as meaning oral sex, not anal sex, and between the clerical predilection to sodomy, and the widespread use of intravenous drugs in Iranian society as a whole, the country has a terribly high rate of HIV and AIDS.

And once AIDS sets in, it opens the door to a whole raft of other diseases, from TB to, you guessed it, colon cancer.
Posted by: Anonymoose   2009-10-13 10:17  

#4  Wait and see. These guys tend to die six or seven times. I think Qadaffy had terminal cancer and six months to live in 2002.
Posted by: Fred   2009-10-13 08:32  

#3  Who is the likely successor?
Posted by: Glenmore   2009-10-13 08:28  

#2  Allah may, but God will not.
Posted by: newc   2009-10-13 07:11  

#1  Faster, please.
Posted by: Mike   2009-10-13 06:47  

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