If any one man is to blame for gleeful Iranian crowing over the attack on Salman Rushdie, it is the country’s 83-year-old supreme leader, Ali Khamenei. The black-turbaned ayatollah’s bigoted, blinkered outlook has been poisoning the well of Iranian politics and society since he first took power in 1989.
Kayhan newspaper, known as Khamenei’s mouthpiece, praised Rushdie’s assailant, saying “his hands should be showered with kisses”. A jubilant headline declared: “Devil’s neck under the sword”. While Iran denies responsibility for the attack, Khamenei has repeatedly endorsed the late Ruhollah Khomeini’s fatwa ordering Rushdie’s murder.
