The
decision by Mir Hoseyn Moussavi, the former Iranian
prime minister, not to participate in next year's
presidential elections has been greeted by huge sighs of
relief in the conservative camp. Conversely, the
reformists lamented the loss of their last credible
chance to arrest the furious pace of power
monopolization and consolidation by their conservative
tormentors.
Irrespective of the pressures
wrought on him by both camps, Moussavi in fact made a
very wise decision. Politics in the Islamic Republic are
likely to be marked by high levels of consensus and
uniformity for the next five years (until the
presidential elections in 2009) and, given the current
mood, now is not the time for a man like Moussavi to
return to the commanding heights of government.
However, Moussavi's brief return to the
headlines of the Tehran dailies contains a thinly
veiled secret on the long-term reconfiguration
and transformation of politics in the Islamic Republic.
The conservatives' ascendancy will not last forever, and
Moussavi is still young enough to fight for the
presidency another day.
The rise and fall of
Moussavi Moussavi is something of a rarity in
Iranian politics; the former prime minister has
significant support among all constituencies in Iranian
society. Much of this popularity stems from his
eight-year tenure as prime minister from 1981-89. A
brilliant administrator and a principled and
uncompromising politician, Moussavi ensured the smooth
functioning of government during the emergency years of
the 1980s, when Iran was embroiled in a bloody war with
Iraq.
The Iranian civil service - long
accustomed to institutionalized corruption, nepotism and
waste during the monarchical era - was transformed by
Moussavi into a comparatively efficient and virtually
corruption-free apparatus. For a Third World country
that had just emerged from a revolution and was
embroiled in a protracted foreign war, this was quite an
achievement. Another remarkable feature of the Moussavi
years is that Iran emerged from the war against Iraq
with zero foreign debts and in 1989 was officially
recognized as the only nation in the developing world
with such credentials.
An architect by
training, Moussavi hails from a traditional middle-class family.
Educated partly in Britain, he managed to win over
sections of the sophisticated and pro-Western middle
classes in post-revolutionary Iran. Meanwhile his
"Hezbollahi" demeanor and unflinching devotion to the
core values of the revolution ensured he enjoyed massive
popularity among the core constituencies of the Islamic
Republic. In short, Moussavi's political popularity
straddled two worlds without him ever having to
compromise on his principles. Labeled a "socialist"
by his political enemies, Moussavi was constantly at
pains to explain that he in fact favored a "mixed"
economy. His own protestations are closer to the truth,
since many of the economic policies pursued by his
government in the 1980s were a reaction to the war
rather than products of ideology. Nevertheless, Moussavi
has always been firmly entrenched in the left-wing camp
of the Islamic Republic. While in recent years many of
his friends metamorphosed into "liberals" and assumed
leading positions in the reform movement, Moussavi stuck
firmly to his ideals. This has led some critics to
question his political judgement and ask whether he
fully understands the underlying dynamics that have
transformed Iranian society over the past 15 years.
Those who have met Moussavi describe a quiet
man, fiercely intellectual and with an impeccable eye
for detail. Handsome, polite and soft-spoken, Moussavi
is an unlikely Iranian politician. He can best be
described as belonging to the "Amir Kabir" school of
politics (named after the legendary Iranian prime
minister in the middle of the 19th century). Amir Kabir
served his Qajar masters while at the same time fighting
the "evils" of modern Iranian politics; namely
institutionalized corruption, sycophancy, effusiveness
and a mindset that is predisposed to inferiority and
superiority complexes at the same time - in short, the
same evils that continue to bedevil the country's
politics 152 years after Amir Kabir's murder on the
orders of the incumbent Qajar monarch.
While
Amir Kabir was knifed to death in a public bath house by
shadowy agents of the tyrannical Qajars, Moussavi was
brought down in a political assassination spearheaded by
Hashemi Rafsanjani (who has earned a deserving
reputation as a latter-day Qajar prince). In fact in
July 1989 Rafsanjani was so intoxicated with power that
he quickly rushed in legislation that abolished the
institution of the premiership altogether; not content
with only destroying the man, Rafsanjani was determined
to destroy his legacy as well.
The Rafsanjani
years could not be more different from the Moussavi era.
Given the ludicrously pompous title of "commander of
construction" by his supporters, Rafsanjani presided
over the deconstruction of all the economic and social
gains of the previous decade. Within a few years his
government had incurred foreign debts exceeding US$30
billion. The efficiency of the Iranian civil service -
ranking as the most noteworthy achievement of Moussavi -
was relentlessly rolled back as cronyism, incompetence
and rampant corruption gradually displaced meritocracy,
efficiency and transparency.
Celebrated
in the West as a modernist and a pragmatist, Rafsanjani
in fact orchestrated the rise to power of
the conservative coalition. Misrepresented in the West as
defenders of Iranian and Islamic tradition, the conservatives
are in fact distinguished by the colossal
commercial interests of their influential constituents.
The conservative coalition that is relentlessly trying to
secure all bastions of power in the country today is
chiefly made up of shadowy organizations such
as Habibollah Asgar-Owladi's "Islamic Coalition Party",
secretive clerics who pull strings from the shadows and
ambitious offspring of leading clerics who have forged
strong commercial links with rich and influential
Iranian exiles in the cosmopolitan cities of Paris,
London, Washington and Los Angeles.
Rafsanjani's
single-minded pursuit of consolidating his own power led
him to strike Faustian deals with widely different
constituencies. His courting of shadowy politicized
clerics enabled these wily old men to not only broaden
their political influence but also gain a foothold in
the impenetrable sanctums of the Islamic Republic's
powerful intelligence community. This had disastrous
consequences, as evidenced by the serial murders of
leading dissidents, journalists and artists. Rather
bizarrely, Rafsanjani courted elements of the previous
regime at the same time. Functionaries in the civil
service back in the 1970s were invited back to the
country as "consultants" to ministers. One such
candidate - known for his strong links to the deposed
Shah's family - was made a senior manager in the
country's main tourist organization before he was
literally forced out of his office by families who had
lost relatives during the Iranian revolution.
More ominously, former Sazamane Etelaat Va
Amniate Kechvar (Iranian Security and Intelligence
Service, 1956-79) officers - who in the 1980s had
acted as liaisons between Iranian intelligence and
Western and Israeli intelligence agencies - were invited
back into the country to set up political and strategic
"consultancies". One such individual - a Jewish Iranian
exiled to London in 1979 - caused a stir in 1992 with
his campaigning on behalf of the Israeli Labor Party on
the eve of the 1992 Israeli general election. One of the
meetings he organized in Tehran descended into chaos as
Jewish-Iranian supporters of Labor and Likud turned on
each other. In perhaps one of the greatest ironies of
the Rafsanjani years, the "Basij" (paramilitary wing of
the revolutionary guards), touted as the ideological
army of the Islamic Republic and apparently committed to
the destruction of the Jewish state, had to intervene to
stop the protagonists from literally tearing each other
apart.
Reinventing Moussavi
Few people would disagree that Iran's embattled
reform movement is in crisis. But there is
widespread disagreement on the precise causes and effects of
this pervasive crisis. Many analysts have focussed on
tactics and strategy, struggling to find consequential
faults. This is, at best, misleading since the methods and
goals of the reformists could not be more transparent
and relevant. The primary weakness of the Iranian
reform movement over the past eight years has been a lack
of effective leadership. President Mohammad Khatami
has proved to be not only a hopeless politician, but also
a third-rate scholar and pretentious statesman.
Interestingly, the lack
of effective leadership is also the Achilles' heel of
the conservatives. The conservatives may soon be in control of
all bastions of power, but in the absence of
centralizing dynamics they are unlikely to be able to
consolidate these gains. Instead they rally their
supporters around hollow ideological slogans that not only conflict
with the essentially "commercial" characteristics
and interests of their coalition, but are also at odds
with the realities of early-21st-century Iran.
Nonetheless, the conservatives are
virtually guaranteed to dominate Iranian politics in the next
five years. However, a resurgent reformist current is
equally guaranteed to sweep the political landscape from
the 2009 presidential elections onwards. There are
many reasons for this, not least the fact that the
conservative coalition will, in due course, fragment in the face
of serious domestic and foreign-policy challenges.
In the meantime, reformers will need to devote
most of their energies to identifying and developing
capable leaders. It is difficult to overestimate the
democratizing potential of the Iranian reform movement.
What started off as an experiment by former members of
the Islamic Republic's security and intelligence
services in the early 1990s has metamorphosed into a
complex movement that broadly articulates the wishes and
interests of the majority of the Iranian people. Indeed,
the first two years of the Khatami presidency saw Iran
beginning to turn into a genuine democracy, with
meaningful elections marked by unparalleled
participation, a vibrant civil society and near total
freedom of the press. Had Khatami been a competent
leader and not squandered one opportunity after another,
Iran may have been a very different country today.
If the reformers are serious about finding
competent leadership they would be hard pressed to find
a better candidate than Moussavi. Those who criticize
this choice on the basis that reformers need to find
leaders among the new generation are missing a very
important point. Indeed, for all the exaggerated talk
about Iranian youths and their unparalleled dynamism, it
is interesting to note that the new generation has not
produced a single political event of any significance.
There are, of course, cultural reasons for this as
Iranian society is profoundly patriarchal; in Iranian
folklore, as exemplified by the legendary "Shahnameh",
the father always slays the son.
Those who
criticize the choice on the basis of Moussavi's
"socialism" or other half-truths are missing yet another
point. In contemporary Iran the ideology of the leader
is not necessarily influential, as the reform movement
has redefined the role of leadership. If the demise of
ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989 marked the end of
"charismatic" spiritual leadership in Iran, then the
abuses of Hashemi Rafsanjani and the incompetence of
Khatami mark the end of the all-powerful "executive"
leader. This is not to say that leadership is not
consequential, but to emphasize the fact that it is the
core constituency that determines the ultimate path and
not the leadership. What the reform movement needs above
all is a leader who is uncompromising in the face of
serious pressure and is able to unite the disparate
ranks of the reform movement under a cohesive set of
policies. Moussavi fits the bill on both counts.
Of course much will depend on the willingness of
Moussavi to re-enter the world of politics. But those
who are well versed at deciphering the cryptic
communications of Iranian leaders cannot help thinking
that Moussavi's sudden courting of publicity and his
equally sudden retreat from the limelight holds some
meaning. The conservatives may yet learn that quiet men
do not necessarily lack serious ambition.
Mahan Abedin is the editor of
Terrorism Monitor, which is published by the Jamestown
Foundation, a non-profit organization specializing in
research and analysis on conflict and instability in
Eurasia. The views expressed here are personal and do
not reflect those of the Jamestown Foundation.
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