Leadership Quote by Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani

Rafsanjani’s line is calibrated ambiguity with a hard edge: he disclaims knowledge about American plans and Iraqi reactions, then pivots to absolute certainty about what “the sole option” must be. That contrast isn’t accidental. The shrug (“I have no idea”) is diplomatic theater, a way to sound sober and non-provocative while quietly stripping Washington of moral authority. It presents Iran’s posture as prudence, not opportunism, even as it advances a clear strategic preference: a U.S. exit and a post-occupation order shaped by local power brokers.

The phrase “leave Iraq to the Iraqi people” sounds like principle, but it’s also a contested claim about who counts as “Iraqi people” in a shattered state. In the aftermath of the U.S. invasion, sovereignty became a slogan everyone wanted to own. For Tehran, invoking Iraqi self-determination functioned as a double move: condemning occupation while legitimizing Iranian influence through parties and militias that could be framed as authentically Iraqi. Rafsanjani doesn’t mention Iran, sectarianism, or regional competition; the omission is the point. By keeping the language clean, he makes the U.S. the sole actor with suspect intentions, and renders Iran’s own role as invisible or naturally aligned with Iraqi agency.

Context matters, too. Rafsanjani was a consummate institutional politician, often cast as a pragmatist inside the Islamic Republic. This quote reads like pragmatism dressed as ethics: a warning about the limits of foreign control, and a reminder that the longer an occupier stays, the more every outcome looks like coercion. The moral is simple; the leverage is not.