What Now For Iran? Ahmadinejad And His Opposition Journey

9 September 2009

By Reza Esfandiari and Yousef Bozorgmehr

To the chagrin of many “Iran experts” resident in the West, notably Dr Ali Ansari of Chatham House, the recent approval of 18 of President Ahmadinejad’s 21 cabinet nominees, including a woman, shows that the bitter divisions within Iran’s political elite appear to be subsiding and that the Iranian Government is returning to business as usual.

The failure of the green movement (mowj e sabz), which took Tehran’s streets by storm for 3 days and precipitated the worst internal crisis in the history of the Islamic Republic, signals the demise of a concerted campaign to unseat Mr Ahmadinejad and the Revolutionary Guards from power although its effects and reverberations may yet be longer lasting.

The show of force witnessed in Tehran by journalists like Roger Cohen, who continues to insist that the election was rigged and that it amounted to a “tragic joke”, was not so much an electoral coup or “putsch” as much as it was a rash and poorly handled counter-move designed to thwart the attempted overthrow of the Government through street demonstrations that, from the outset, were compromised by riotous elements amongst a peaceful and generally well-behaved majority.

The moment Mousavi declared himself the “definite winner” one hour after the polls closed, and solely based on a bogus call from someone in the Interior Ministry, marked the beginning of an orchestrated effort to overturn the verdict of the ballot box, plunging the country into civil strife.

Some commentators, including the head of the Guardians council, Ayatollah Jannati, have since drawn parallels with the 1953 coup that saw the overthrow of the popular Mossadegh premiership though similar street tactics. General Yadollah Javani, head of the Revolutionary Guard’s political bureau, had warned several days in advance of the election that a potential coup was in the offing whereby Mousavi would declare the results fraudulent if Ahmadinejad won and demand that they be overturned or that the Government resigned.

Based on similar colour revolutions that had happened in Serbia, the Ukraine, Georgia and other places, irrespective of the authenticity of the poll there, the aim was to effect soft regime change by fomenting protests on the street whose momentum would prove unstoppable. Mousavi could always draw on the core support of hundreds of thousands of bourgeoisie North Tehranis (3.7 million people voted against the incumbent in the province of Tehran alone) who felt astonished and aggrieved that they had voted one way and the rest of the country in a completely different manner.

Iranians revel in conspiracy talk, and they were willing this time to believe that their votes had really been stolen. What Mousavi and his supporters did not anticipate was that both Khamenei and Ahmadinejad were prepared to tough it out and stand their ground in the face of such public pressure. In his speech on June 19th, Ayatollah Khamenei said that to give in to the mob, and dispense with the rule of law, was tantamount to ochlocracy and the first step down the road of dictatorship. The unstoppable force had met the immovable object. Mousavi was caught in a tight predicament and didn’t know exactly how to react and proceed.

But the “green revolution”, or rather “green coup” of 2009, was not really about Mousavi so much as it was about his patron, the wealthy Hashemi Rafsanjani. He succeeded in as much as he robbed Ahmadinejad of the enormous political capital he would have accrued from an impressive landslide election victory that, according to Ahmadinejad’s top aide Esfandiar Mashai, was as much a vote against the Rafsanjani family and the bazaari mafia who were financing Mousavi’s campaign, as it was a vote for Ahmadinejad.

The accepted outcome would have resulted in the inevitable complete sidelining of the opponents of Mr Ahmadinejad and could have paved the way for the newly re-elected Government to pursue corruption charges against the Rafsanjani family and their acolytes. This was something Hashemi Rafsanjani was determined to resist by any means possible and he decided to play his final ace. Its also fairly clear that he managed to secure a robust defence against corruption charges by pressuring Ayatollah Khamenei to exonerate him in his Friday prayer sermon.

For the enemies of Ahmadinejad in the West, especially those itching for tougher sanctions or even military action, they still have cause to rejoice in the damage inflicted on the country’s already tarnished image. An election which would have been adjudged to have been free and fair would have been a disaster for proponents of regime change or a harder line against Tehran.

While historians will probably have to concede that the outcome of the election was an accurate reflection of the popular will, and not the “preposterous sham” that the Economist magazine described it as, the ugly scenes that ensued before the eyes of the world’s media no doubt shamed the Islamic Republic even if, compared with the Paris uprising of 1968 and the brutal use of force by the French security forces, or that of the Derry rebellion in Northern Ireland of 1971-1972, the police actions were relatively measured and restrained.

Ayatollah Khamenei, also in his Friday sermon, pointedly recalled the Waco massacre in Texas as a particularly nasty and egregious instance of the U.S. government’s violence against its own citizenry and the hypocrisy of its claim to champion human rights.

The Islamic Republic system is a complex one involving about eight constitutional bodies ranging from the office of the Leadership and Majlis to the judiciary and Expediency council of whom Mousavi is a member and Mr Rafsanjani is the chair. Contrary to how the western media portrays Iran’s Islamic regime, Ayatollah Khamenei is not a “supreme governor”, but rather the figurehead and fulcrum who supervises and holds these often competing centres of power.

Important decisions, particularly those relating to national security, are taken on the basis of a broad consensus between the various bodies. Mr Mousavi made it clear in a televised debate that he thought that Mr Ahmadinejad had created a system of “insiders and outsiders” where establishment people like himself, who had been used to being consulted on important national matters, were now treated very much as the outsiders.

From Mousavi and Rafsanjani’s perspective the Old Guard of the Islamic Republic was essentially being undermined and taken over by the rising power and influence of the Revolutionary Guards of whom Ahmadinejad is the visible vanguard, as well as that of the neo-conservative Haghani circle of clerics, headed by Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, which remains separate from the traditional clergy and its age-old alliance with the bazaar.

But Ahmadinejad, despite having his wings clipped by his political enemies, nonetheless has time on his side and room with which to manoeuvre. In many respects, the situation of the country is not as dire as largely uninformed western commentators make it out to be. While economic growth has slowed in the wake of the global financial crisis, it has remained positive and inflation continues to decline due to the tough monetary and fiscal policies applied by the central bank and the national budgetary organisation. The massive investments made in the national infrastructure over the last four years will too no doubt pay off in his second term and serve to help reduce unemployment and boost industrial production.

One thing Ahmadinejad cannot be faulted on is his strengthening of the power, prestige and authority of the executive branch of the presidency – this, of course, is an essential step in the democratisation of any system. A unique poll conducted by Terror Free Tomorrow showed that 21% of Iranians consider the president to be most influential government official in the country, more so than the office of the Leadership.

While the theocratic institution of wilayat al faqih, or guardianship of the jurist, remains a central pillar of the system, its pivotal status increasingly appears in doubt, and it seems likely that a post-Khamenei leadership will involve a kind of supervisory council consisting of leading religious jurists (maraja) drawn from the elected Assembly of Experts, the electoral college which appoints and has the power to dismiss the religious leadership. The constitution envisages such a development and allows for it. It is something that Rafsanjani almost certainly supports as a benign evolution within the system. But real power will rest with the President with the Revolutionary Guard exerting power from behind the scenes as the military in Turkey continue to do.

Mousavi, for his part, continues to insist that the election was marred by fraud and that he want to reclaim their “stolen votes” and “lost rights”: He has since claimed on many occasions he would reveal “tell-all” documents about electoral fraud and vote rigging but. as of yet, nothing has been disclosed.

Moreover, the fact that Rafsanjani has since called for national unity and for all protagonists to adhere to the guidelines of the Leadership leaves Mousavi and his supporters isolated. It may be that this pledge to carry on opposing is a tactical rather than strategic decision to keep pressure on the Government while trials of prominent reformists still under way. It is also unlikely that any movement against the Government can maintain a sense of direction and unity all the way until municipal elections are held late next year. While reformist-minded students may carry on protesting with risk of new incidents flaring up, the presence of the baseej and other committed hard-line groups on university campuses and the street will see that nothing get outs of control and is kept a lid on.

Finally, the nuclear program which is of particular concern to the West, is unlikely to become a domestic issue unless tough new sanctions are imposed which are seen as hurting the Economy and causing undue pain. But there is little stomach between Russia and China for such measures, and in the West there is a hope that Iran can be enticed into confidence building steps and more negotiations without the need for more confrontation. All eyes will be on the Iranian president when he visits the U.N in New York later this month to see if he is prepared to show some flexibility and magnanimity, thus warding off criticism of his general approach amongst his opponents at home. It is an opportunity he would be foolish to waste.


-- Reza Esfandiari and Yousef Bozorgmehr can be reached at: esfandiarireza@ymail.com.

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