Schrodinger's cat???

Khamenei's new purported message only fuels the doubts over who is running Iran

Analysis by Nick Paton Walsh in Beirut

It’s a void that is growing. For the second time since he came to power, Iran’s new supreme leader has delivered a purported message without the salient confirmation: I am alive and well.

Friday’s New Year message contained again no audio or video of the leader, or even an adequately or assuredly new still image of him. Even after the death of his security chief, Ali Larijani, and the statement from Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he did not know who was running Iran.

It is now beyond explanation by security concerns alone: there is clearly a problem with Mojtaba Khamenei’s physical appearance or level of consciousness that he can’t dispel the doubts. It will add to the fears there is a vacuum at the top in Tehran and that hardliners are doing whatever they can to inflict damage and prove their leadership chops in the gap.

His message did, however, contain some elements of new policy. He said attacks in Turkey and Oman were not from Iran but by Israel – a bid to heal, and obfuscate, with a tired old false flag fiction.

He claimed to have traveled the streets of Iran anonymously in a taxi, hearing grievances about the economy (run by his father) and largely agreeing with them. He asked the media to keep tabs on dissent and he praised Iran’s fending off the “coup” – read protests – of January.

But ultimately there was no message he could deliver that could distract from the glaring takeaway question: is he conscious and in control, and if not, who is?