Politics & Power Quote by Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani

Rafsanjani is doing what seasoned power-brokers do best: defending the state by outsourcing blame to bureaucracy, then flipping the moral scoreboard back onto the critic. The opening move sounds procedural, almost technocratic: “each department and institution has its own authorities and responsibilities.” It’s the language of a system that wants to look rule-bound even when it’s accused of being lawless. By invoking dispersed authority, he implies any controversial act is not a choice made by “the regime” so much as routine governance carried out by discrete actors. That’s not accountability; it’s strategic fog.

Then comes the rhetorical counterpunch: don’t you dare compare us to Guantanamo. The point isn’t to argue the facts of Iran’s conduct, but to police the terms of comparison, because comparison is where legitimacy lives or dies. If the yardstick is global human rights norms, Tehran is vulnerable. If the yardstick is American hypocrisy, Tehran can compete.

The Guantanamo reference is carefully chosen: it’s a symbol that travels well, shorthand for indefinite detention, humiliation, and an exceptionalism that claims innocence while manufacturing exceptions. Rafsanjani’s subtext is less “we did nothing wrong” than “you don’t get to judge.” It’s a classic sovereignty argument dressed up as moral critique.

Context matters: Rafsanjani, a pragmatic insider who often positioned himself as the reasonable face of the Islamic Republic, is still speaking from within a system under constant Western scrutiny. This is defensive realism: concede nothing, redirect everything, and make the accuser answer for their own dark archive.