WASHINGTON TIMES
by Daniel Pipes
August 20, 2015

The supreme leader may prefer ideological purity to an agreement

Whether congressional Democrats accept or reject Barack Obama’s Iran deal has great importance and is rightly the focus of international attention. But there is another debate taking place over the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action that may be even more critical: the one in Iran. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the country’s decision-maker, just might reject the laboriously worked-out agreement that he helped negotiate. On one level, that makes no sense. As a plethora of analyses have established, the Vienna deal is enormously favorable to the Islamic Republic of Iran, legitimizing its nuclear research, assuring its future nuclear weapons program, helping the economy, and boosting its aggressive international goals…But rejecting it makes sense if one focuses not on those immediate advantages and instead looks at its future dangers to the Iranian regime’s survival. READ MORE