Iran Claims Parliament Speaker Has Met with Missing ‘Supreme Leader’

Iranian state media claimed on Wednesday that Parliament Speaker Mohammed Bagher Ghalibaf “met and held talks with” the enigmatic “Supreme Leader” Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, who has not been seen or heard from by the public since the February 28 airstrike that killed his father and predecessor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) cited the “information portal” of the Supreme Leader’s office to claim that Ghalibaf and Khamenei “addressed the latest developments regarding the military, economic, and psychological warfare waged by the American-Zionist enemy.” According to the report, Khamenei lectured Ghalibaf on the importance of the following matters: strengthening elements of national power; the effective role of lawmakers in preserving and consolidating unity and social cohesion; the continued, informed, and deterrent presence of the nation in public gatherings; and the collaboration of both the government and the parliament in resolving the people’s economic and livelihood-related challenges, as well as advancing matters concerning the country’s strategic partners. The last time the Iranian people tried to have an informed presence in public gatherings, the regime gunned them down by the thousands. What the regime really wants now is public demonstrations of support that might deter the U.S. and Israel from attacking Iran again. The reason the regime had to murder so many of its own people in January was public outrage at the government’s poor handling of the economy. The Iranian economy is in much worse shape now, so Ghalibaf would have no shortage of “livelihood-related challenges” to discuss at the next parliamentary session. Mojtaba Khamenei was installed as Supreme Leader by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in March, despite having vanished from public view since the beginning of Operation Epic Fury. Iranian state media soon admitted Khamenei had been “wounded,” but no verifiable information has ever been released about his condition. The IRGC occasionally publishes written statements that are supposedly from Khamenei, most of which tend to be very complimentary of the IRGC and Iranian leadership. The closest thing to proof of life offered by the regime has been an allegedly “handwritten letter” from Khamenei to IRGC Aerospace Force commander Gen. Majid Mousavi in August, but skeptical observers pointed out numerous irregularities in the letter, from its odd date (a “copy” of it was supposedly given to another Iranian official five days before it was written) to its nonsensical content. Furthermore, the handwriting did not match up well with confirmed handwriting samples from Khamenei in his youth. Besides Ghalibaf, a few other officials from Iran’s secular government claim to have met with Khamenei and vouch for his continued survival, including President Masoud Pezeshkian and Ayatollah Mohsen Heydari al-Kathir, a member of the “Assembly of Experts” that confirms the Supreme Leader position. Subsequent reports cast doubt on whether Pezeshkian had ever been in Khamenei’s presence at all. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to tacitly concede that he believes Khamenei is still alive during remarks to a graduating class of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) officers on Wednesday — although maybe not for much longer. Netanyahu said the younger Khamenei has “decided to follow in his father’s footsteps” and try to “once again develop the bombs of death.” “And therefore, there is only one way to remove this threat once and for all: overthrow the regime in Iran. And that is my directive to the IDF, the Mossad, and the security branches,” Netanyahu said. As for Ghalibaf, he took to social media after emerging from his putative meeting with the Supreme Leader and threatened the United States with dire consequences for any further action against Iran by borrowing imagery from The Matrix: “Ten pills, all bad. No red, no blue. All soot. You don’t have to take any, but if you do, you will take all. Break the manufactured matrix. Leave,” Ghalibaf wrote, seemingly a bit confused about the meaning of the red and blue pills in the 1999 science-fiction movie. All of the “pills” depicted in his tweet were dire consequences for America, including the price of diesel and gasoline rising, American soldiers being killed, and American planes getting shot down.