In the Name of God
“A House of Reed”
Mr. Khamenei:
In the past few weeks, the media under your command, such as the state broadcaster (IRIB) and Kayhan, have overstepped their bounds and heaped every accusation and insult imaginable upon me. The words of these media outlets, which act on orders, are not worth answering. But since what they say reflects your own positions and views, I thought I would address these few lines to you. Perhaps you will come to your senses a little and act with piety.
First – In the twenty years that you have held the leadership of the Islamic Republic, in order to suppress your opponents and consolidate the foundations of your power, you have, without exception (without even a single exception), accused all of your opponents of being agents of America, and then of Israel and other countries. Along the way, you have even adorned with these accusations people who were not your opponents at all, but merely held a view or opinion different from yours, or an interpretation of religion and the world different from yours. Nor has it made any difference to you whether those you targeted were teachers or workers, women's rights activists or human rights defenders, bazaar merchants or students, clerics or academics, writers or journalists, political or non-political. Even the reformists inside the government have not been spared your accusations and labeling. The artillery of the state broadcaster and of newspapers such as Kayhan has opened fire with accusations and slander the moment it received your permission. Day and night you chant "death to this" and "death to that" and demand that everyone obey you, unaware that, as the Noble Sheikh [Saadi] put it:
No one would seek shelter under the shadow of an owl, even if the homa [the mythical bird of good fortune] vanished from the world.
For this reason, if any individual or any social or political group that strives in some way for democracy, human rights, freedom of thought and the rightful demands of the people of Iran is not accused by your media agents of being a mercenary, a dependent, an errand boy or a paid agent of America, Israel and others, then in my view they should certainly doubt the authenticity of their work and accept that something in it is amiss, and that they must somehow be pouring water into the mill of religious despotism to have been spared by your slander machine.
Second – I have thought for a long time about why you are the way you are. I attributed part of this behavior of yours, and still do, to an incurable disease within Iranian society and among the Iranian people: slander and suspicion. I also considered another part, and still do, to stem from your mental makeup and your excessive suspicion, especially the pathological strength of conspiracy theory in your mind. You consider all the events of the world to be the product of planning by a single board of directors for the entire world called "the Enemy," and you believe that all the political events of the world from the Renaissance until now are the work of a group of capitalists and Zionists who want to replace spirituality and God-centeredness with materialism, human-centeredness and moral deviation. And since the Islamic Republic and you personally are the symbol of this spirituality and return to God and the sign of the rule of the righteous, they therefore conspire day and night against the Islamic Republic and against you personally. All politicians, and even thinkers, especially Westerners, are, knowingly or unknowingly, puppets in the shadow play of that board of directors behind the curtain. I believe that this mindset and this pathological interpretation of the world is intensely prevalent in you and in many of those around you, and the best proof of my claim, as it happens, is the writings of this very newspaper Kayhan and the programs of the state broadcaster, which proclaim your views and theories. The essence of thousands of pages of writing and hundreds of hours of programs and analysis by these media is precisely the few lines I have set out here. You still suffer from this illness, and there is no hope of recovery.
Up to this point, the two sides of "consolidating despotism" and "mental illness" have been my main explanation for the daily accusation-mongering and labeling by you, Kayhan, the state broadcaster and the rest of your media.
And now, third – Some time ago I came across a young Iranian researcher who for years has been working, for his doctoral dissertation, on the documents of the East German security service (the Stasi), which are now in the possession of the police of the Federal Republic of Germany. With an introduction from his university and through extensive efforts, he has been able to access the portion of the documents that have not yet been cleared for publication and public release. These documents show that after the victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, because of sensitivities about the Soviet Union and the "neither East nor West" slogan that dominated the revolution, and also because the leaders of the Tudeh Party had lived for many long years in East Germany and several of the party's leaders had collaborated with the East German security service, which consequently gave that service expertise and skill in Iranian affairs, the Soviet Union decided to concentrate the main part of its Iran affairs in the East German security service. Interestingly, one of the senior officers of the KGB (the notorious Soviet security agency) who also held part of the responsibility for Iranian affairs was none other than Mr. Vladimir Putin, who is surely known to you, and who on his recent trip to Tehran also saw "Christ" in you.
The reports of the security agents who came to Iran from East Germany in the guise of trade delegations to cooperate in the sale and production of weapons show that they held a very positive opinion of you, and the promises and arrangements they made with you at the time when you were a member of the Revolutionary Council and the council's liaison with the Ministry of Defense make very interesting reading, especially your insistence on closer ties with the Soviet Union and ever-increasing cooperation with the Eastern Bloc. According to this young researcher, who has taken on the labor of studying thousands of pages of documents, not only are your statements to the East German agents very interesting, but even more interesting are the very positive assessments by Russian intelligence officers of their contacts with you. And another interesting point is that from a certain time onward, the affection of the Russian and East German intelligence officers for the Tudeh Party cools, they show little concern about its being crushed, and they no longer pay attention to the reports of its members, who were themselves in danger. I do not know whether the German government will ultimately allow this portion of the documents to be published, but I do know that someone like you, who sits in such a glass house, should not throw stones at God's creatures day and night. Again, in the words of Saadi, may God have mercy on him: "A Hindu was practicing throwing naphtha. A sage passed by and said: for one whose house is made of reed, this is no game." That holds even if you believe in the old political method that says, "If you curse and slander everyone, no one will ask you who you are and where you came from." Truly, if someone had even a tenth of such documents about contacts with foreigners, how would you treat him, and what calamity would you bring down upon him? Come to your senses a little.
Mr. Khamenei:
Unlike you, I fear God, and I do not permit myself to play with the honor of God's servants, even if it is you. I also believe in this verse of the Qur'an: "Let not hatred of a people turn you away from the path of justice. Be just; that is nearer to piety" (Al-Ma'idah, 8). For this reason, I will say no more than this, nor will I pass any judgment. I will wait until the documents of your contacts with East German agents are soon published clearly and transparently, and the Iranian nation will be the judge. But above all of us is God the All-Knowing, who watches over the deeds of every one of us. I invite you to act with piety and to fear God, if only a little.
That is all.
Mohammad Mohsen Sazegara
29 Bahman 1387 (17 February 2009)