Reporter’s Notebook: The Ayatollah’s Off-Ramp?

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Former Iranian official writes letter to Iran’s Supreme Leader over protests

Fox News correspondent Amy Kellogg interview’s former Iranian diplomat, Mehrdad Khonsari, on the country’s ongoing protests. ‘No way to turn clock back.’

Nuclear negotiations were stalled to begin with, but the protests that have been happening in waves across Iran since September and the brutal crackdown that has ensued have made doing business with the Islamic Republic that much more complicated.  

More than 500 people have been killed, 19,000 arrested and at least four have been executed in connection with the demonstrations. The spark that ignited what has become perhaps the biggest challenge to the regime since Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979 revolution, was the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini while in police custody after having been picked up for “bad hijab.” 

The battle cry of these protests fast became, “Women. Life. Freedom.” However, it has become much more. All sorts of grievances have come to the fore in protests that have become, in large part, a call for end to the brutal Tehran regime.

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A man gestures during a protest over the death of Mahsa Amini, a woman who died after being arrested by the Islamic republic’s "morality police", in Tehran, Iran Sept. 19, 2022.
(WANA – West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS )

Former Iranian diplomat Mehrdad Khonsari told Fox News that dictators never make concessions until they have to, but he believes the time has come for Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He has written an open letter to the 83-year-old Khamenei, appealing to him in “the twilight of his life” to do the right thing.  

“My suggestion,” Khonsari wrote to the leader “is that in these critical and fateful days, you should take the lead with a realistic and courageous understanding of the obvious and undeniable realities that exist by striving to replicate the model used in South Africa…the adoption of such an approach would, in fact, reveal a true understanding of contemporary history allowing you to differentiate between the kind of fate that ultimately awaited someone like (F.W.) de Klerk in South Africa or (Muammar) Gaddafi in Libya.”

Khonsari said he is not appealing to conscience so much as rationality in Iran’s leader. He claimed, if nothing else, Khamenei is a wily man who is far from dumb. Khamenei himself must know that his support base has eroded over the years. “There is a great deal of evidence for that,” Khonsari says. 

“Look at the people who were key players at different stages. For example, one of the most prominent families of the Islamic Revolution, the Rafsanjani family. Where are they? The daughter is in jail. The father, the family believes, was killed. One of the sons who was in jail was just released after doing his time.” Former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi is still under house arrest. Former President Mohammad Khatami, Khonsari said, “has just managed to keep his head above water by not being provocative, but certainly he is not in any way supportive of the kind of views and policies” Khamenei espouses.

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The grave of Mahsa Amini in her hometown of Saqqez, Iran.
(Fox News Digital)

What many believe was pretty much a sealed deal, for Khamenei’s son to succeed him when he eventually passes away, would under current circumstances, Khonsari believes, be too much for even residents of a police state to swallow. Khonsari said the fact that Iranians have uttered the words “Death to the Dictator” in the recent protests shows a new level of discontent and that Khamenei and the system have lost all legitimacy. That there is no way back.

However, Iranians did chant such slogans in 2009 after disputed presidential elections.  

“Well, the fact that 12 years have gone by and any hope that things might improve for the Iranian people have gone,” Khonsari said. “And you have to bear in mind that these protests are happening at a time when Iran is facing four major crises. You have an economic crisis the government has no idea how to fix…They are facing a social crisis because of issues that have to do with freedom and youth.  You have a political crisis surrounding succession and you have the nuclear crisis which has not led to any kind of resolution.”

A huge mural of Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei Iran’s Supreme Leader painted next to a smaller one of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, right, seen on Motahari street on March 8, 2020 in Tehran, Iran. The message on the wall reads "The power and influence and dignity of America in the world is on the fall and extermination" and on top of the building, another slogan reads "We are standing till the end."
(Photo by Kaveh Kazemi/Getty Images)

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As far as Khonsari is concerned, Iran is, in fact, in a state of revolution already. 

“In the course of the past four months, the people with empty hands have resisted the government no matter how much force has been used against them. They have refused to budge or back down on the demands they have. And the government refuses to budge. That is a revolutionary situation.”  Khonsari concludes his appeal to Ayatollah Khamenei ultimately is to recognize that and to pave the way for an eventual transition, making that path as painless and bloodless as possible. 

Amy Kellogg currently serves as a correspondent based in Milan. She joined FOX News Channel (FNC) in 1999 as a Moscow-based correspondent. Follow her on Twitter: @amykelloggfox