Did the eldest son of Iran’s President-elect Hassan Rouhani kill himself to protest the “hypocrisy” of his father and the regime he serves?
Iranian news reports at the time said the son shot himself with his father’s pistol in 1992. But now Iranian dissident Ali Reza Nuri reports that the son wrote a suicide note. Writing in the London-based, Saudi-owned pan-Arab newspaper al-Sharq al-Awsat, he says the note read: “I hate your government, your lies, your corruption, your religion, your double standard and your hypocrisy,” the son wrote of the future president in that suicide note.
There’s more: “I was forced to lie to my friends each day, telling them that my father isn’t part of all of this. Telling them my father loves this nation, whereas I believe this to be untrue. It makes me sick seeing you, my father, kiss the hand of [Supreme Leader Ali] Khamenei.”
(The Gatestone Institute, a Washington-based think tank, published a similar account of the suicide note, citing another Iranian scholar, Alireza Nourizadeh, as its source.)
Rouhani at the time had only started his climb to the top, serving as deputy speaker of parliament. Details were therefore scant in the regime-controlled press: The son’s name, his age and even the actual suicide date are missing from official reports on the incident.
Some regime insiders explained away the suicide as a personal tragedy, blaming it on a love affair and “broken heart.” Other widely circulated rumors claimed the mullahs had the son offed for expressing anti-regime sentiments.
But, in the immortal words of Hillary Clinton, what difference does it make? Khamenei will continue steering Iran’s nuclear and war policies even after Rouhani’s election on Saturday.
Yet the presidency of a man widely described as a “moderate” is still expected to revive the search for a grand bargain that’d allow Iran to enrich uranium (albeit “only” to a low level) and ease the sanctions and other current pressures on the regime in Tehran.
That prospect scares not only Israel, but also many of the region’s Sunni leaders who fear that Shiite Iran, equipped with nukes, could dominate the region.
So, yes, the Saudis might be passing along a faked note that chips away at Rouhani’s “moderate” image. Or it might be real, but tell us little. After all, relations between fathers and sons can be complex.
Nevertheless, the suicide note reads authentic mostly because it conveys the Iranian public’s hatred of the regime, of which Rouhani is part and parcel. If anything, that sentiment is much stronger now than it was in 1992.
So, for all those who’re all of a sudden ready to rethink the policies on genocidal Iran just because “the people” elected a “moderate”: FYI.
Twitter: @bennyavni