Iran’s supreme leader offered a new signal of support Sunday for a deal to scale back his country’s controversial nuclear program as negotiators race to meet an upcoming deadline.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose recent public pronouncements have usually been skeptical about the talks, promised in a speech to Iranian air force officials that “I would go along with the agreement in the making,” the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.
It is not for nothing that they call him the Supreme Leader. If Khamenei really is suggesting publicly that he might be willing to approve a nuclear agreement with the West, that’s a potentially big deal. It’s never really mattered much what anyone else thinks about the negotiations, after all.
So does this mean I should raise my expectation of a deal from 50-50 to, say, 60-40? Maybe. But I’m not sure I’m there yet.
