SPECIAL TO PJM: Iran Supreme Leader Hospitalized. Condition Grave
Ayatollah’s health fails as Iran power struggle grows
by Michael Ledeen
Three days ago, Iran’s dictator, Supreme Leader Ayatollah ali Khamenei, was rushed to the vast medical facility traditionally known as “Vanak” hospital (it now has an Arabic name that means “the 12th Imam Hospital”), a 1,200-room facility that saves half of its beds for the leadership.
Khamenei is known to be suffering from cancer, and taking considerable quantities of an opium-based pain killer. He has lost more than 17 pounds in the past ten months, and was told last spring that he was unlikely to see another New Year (In the Iranian calendar, the New Year begins at the end of March).
Khamenei first complained of chills, and then broke out in a cold sweat. He lay down to rest, and began to lose feeling in his feet, at which point his aides got him to the hospital.
Amidst maximum security, and under orders that the event be kept secret at all costs, the theocrat was placed in one of the luxurious suites reserved for the country’s most important figures. Khamenei’s blood pressure and pulse were alarmingly low, and his physicians at first feared some sort of hemorrhage. But they could find no trace of internal bleeding, and concluded that he had had some sort of cardiac crisis.
Khamenei is still undergoing tests and receiving maximum attention. It is clearly a serious problem because he wanted to leave the hospital, only to be talked out of it by the doctors. The precise gravity of his condition is not known, but the argument over the wisdom of moving him to his own home suggests it may be quite serious.
My sources for this information are a very knowledgeable Iranian cleric plus another Iranian who has previously provided strikingly accurate stories from the highest levels of the regime in Tehran, suggesting that a major crisis may be underway in Iran. ...
PJM: Khamenei hospitalized, condition unknown
Allahpundit
It’s Michael Ledeen, putting some meat on the bone after he floated this a few days ago at the Corner sans details:
[...]
Big news, as whether or not Iran becomes fully “Ahmadinejadized” will depend on who succeeds Khamenei. The leading candidates include Mahdi’s archrival, Rafsanjani, and his “spiritual mentor,” Mesbah-Yazdi, a hardcore jihadist nut who’s bestowed Koranic sanction on slavery and the use of nuclear weapons, among other things. I say again: the use of nuclear weapons. Not just their construction and stockpiling.
Think of him as the Emperor Palpatine to Ahmadinejad’s Vader. And, I guess, Rafsanjani as Jabba the Hutt. He’s a plutocrat who topped the list of Forbes’s millionaire mullahs back in 2003, so there’s at least a chance of him behaving rationally as supreme leader. Mesbah-Yazdi, by contrast, is rumored to belong to the Hojjatieh Society, a secretive messianic Shiite cult within Iran that believes the return of the 12th imam is imminent. He denies it, but that’s to be expected: Khomeini himself banned the Society in 1983, so even members of the ruling elite would be leery about advertising their association with it.
Long story short, ...
