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Is Iran's Supreme Leader Dead?

That's what prominent neocon and American Enterprise Institute scholar Michael Ledeen reported in a one line blog post yesterday afternoon. Today, however, he seems less than certain that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has indeed passed, telling Regime Change Iran, a blog whose agenda you can guess at, that

The source still insists Khamenei is dead, but I cannot find any direct or indirect confirmation. To my knowledge only one person says Khamenei is dead. That said, the regime would have every reason to keep the fact secret, and Khamenei’s physical condition has certainly been grave. In addition to the reports of his emergency hospitalization, his message to the Islamic Community on the Eid festival was released, not publicly read, as he had always done in the past. He has made no public appearances for several days, and Persian web sites have declared—several days ago now—that he cannot carry out his responsibilities and will have to be replaced. The struggle for succession is well under way.

Ledeen, who's long agitated for regime change in Iran, is known for maintaining close ties to the Iranian exile community, so perhaps his information is legit. But that certainly depends on who his lone source really is -- and whether or not it's Ledeen's close friend Manucher Ghorbanifar, the Iranian arms dealer, Iran-Contra figure, and alleged intelligence fabricator. Stay tuned.

Posted by Daniel Schulman on 01/05/07 at 10:51 AM | E-mail | Print | Digg | de.licio.us | Reddit | Newsvine | Yahoo! MyWeb | StumbleUpon | Netscape | Google |