We covered the resignation of Iran's nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani a few days ago in AT here. as well as the ascension of Saeed Jalili to the post.

But what we didn't know at the time was that Jalili is a fervent disciple of Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, a fanatical believer in the return of the 12th Imam and former member of a banned sect that sought to sow the chaos in the world the sect believed would hasten the 12th Imam's return.

It turns out that Jalili is a protege of a close associate of Yazdi - Hashemi Samare  - who also mentored President Ahmadinejad back in the 1990's. Samare is very close to Ahmadinejad. He's with him on his foreign trips and is considered one of his most loyal deputies. And Jalili worked under Samare in the Foreign Ministry:

Jalili’s closeness with Hashemi Samare, and his appointment as the head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) and as the head of Iran’s nuclear negotiation team shows that the messianics have scored another major victory in placing one of their allies in a senior political position.

Now they can boast that, along with holding positions of power in the Ministry of Intelligence (Gholam Hosssein Ejehi), Ministry of Interior (Mostafa Pour Mohammadi), and, of course, the Presidency (Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) - by having Saeed Jalili as chief nuclear negotiator, they now have a stronger say over how Iran deals with the West over its nuclear program. Despite this power, the messianics will still find a strong obstacle, in the form of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei, who, for now, has the last word on Iran’s nuclear program.

The increasing presence of messianics and their allies in high ranking positions inside the Iranian government will make it much more difficult for Western governments to believe that Iran’s leadership will at any point in the near future be ready to find a negotiated settlement for the current crisis.