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Meet President George W
Ahmadinejad
By Arang
Keshavarzian
(Posted with permission from
Foreign Policy in Focus)
Mahmud Ahmadinejad's presidential election
victory in late June was a surprise to pundits
both inside and outside Iran. Not only did the
favorite Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani not win, but the
turnout was about 60% in both rounds, so the
much-debated election boycott did not reduce
participation to historic lows. Ahmadinejad,
Tehran's former mayor, with the help of the
security-military apparatus, mobilized his
conservative base in the first round of balloting
to force an unprecedented second-round runoff
against Rafsanjani. He then reached out to the
political independent masses to win more than 60%
of the vote. The unpredictability  and close nature of
the result (as well as of Mohammad Khatami's
victory in 1997) are especially significant in the
Middle East, where elections, when they do occur,
are often formalities. [1]
Iran now has a
49-year-old devout president with a doctorate in
engineering rather than a seminary education. He
has been shaped as much by the eight-year
Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s and the military
establishment as by the 1979 revolution and
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's circle of students
(Khomenini died in 1989).
To date,
Ahmadinejad has been active only in local affairs
(Tehran municipal and Ardebil provincial
governments), not in national politics. In his
campaign he was able to combine his loyalty to
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his staunch social
conservatism with a Robin Hood-style populist,
anti-corruption message and a promise to bring oil
revenue to the home of every Iranian. Thus, in a
remarkable move Ahmadinejad maintained and
mobilized his very close ties with the
conservative establishment - such as the office of
the supreme leader, the Islamic Revolutionary
Guard and the volunteer groups of mobilizers
(basij) - while convincing the "common
folk" that he was "one of them".
Unlike
traditional conservatives, (principally the
merchant class and the clerical hierarchy),
Ahmadinejad and Iran's neo-conservatives have
cobbled together an electoral base comprising the
revolutionary military establishment, war veterans
and the economically disenfranchised to trumpet a
message that is as threatening to capital
interests as it is to supporters of
democratization and pluralism.
Implications for the US
What
does this all mean for Washington's own
neo-conservative administration? The night before
the first round of Iranian elections, George W
Bush described the election as lacking "the basic
requirements of democracy" and predicted that "the
tide of freedom [that] sweeps this region ... will
also come eventually to Iran". It is correct to
criticize Iran's electoral process as less than
free and fair since unconstitutional interference
during the first-round balloting was particularly
troubling.
However, Bush's harsh words and
threats seem awkward in a region where
Washington's closest allies (Egypt, Saudi Arabia,
the United Arab Emirates, Tunisia and Jordan) hold
utterly meaningless ballots. Moreover, in Iraq,
Afghanistan and the Palestinian Occupied
Territories elections have only taken place under
highly restricted conditions. Nonetheless, if
Bush's "tide of freedom" is to wash away the
Islamic republic any time soon, it will have to
contend with the election of Ahmadinejad and the
17 million Iranians who voted for him in the
second round of the election.
Within days
of Ahmadinejad's victory, a doomsday scenario was
written by the most interventionist elements of
the Washington policy circles. They argued that
the arrival of Ahmadinejad with the support of the
military apparatus would result in the
radicalization of Iran's domestic and foreign
policy and would thus pose an imminent danger to
US interests. Patrick Clawson, an Iran expert at
the hawkish Washington Institute for Near East
Policy, wrote in the New Republic magazine that
"Iranians elected a proto-fascist as president"
who "bears plenty of resemblance to the Taliban's
[social conservativism]". [2]
Clawson and
others feel that Iran's election revealed the
essentially totalitarian and anti-American nature
of the Islamic republic, and they argue that - as
with the Taliban in Afghanistan and fascist
regimes in Germany, Italy, Japan and Iraq - the US
must support democracy in Iran through the
bayonet. "Ahmadinejad has brought the inevitable
confrontation between Iran and the US to a head,"
asserts Jamie Glazov in the online Front Page
Magazine. [3]
Neo-conservatives contend
that the Bush administration will have to take a
tough stand against a less cooperative and more
unpredictable Islamic republic and by leveraging
various points of advantage. In response to
Ahmadinejad's administration, Washington could
pressure European governments to impose stricter
ultimatums and monitoring mechanisms on Iran's
nuclear program or to cease negotiations
altogether.
The US could also take the
Iranian nuclear issue to the UN Security Council
in order to impose heavy sanctions, a viable
prospect under newly appointed UN ambassador John
Bolton. Meanwhile, the Bush administration could
more directly support the plethora of monarchists,
Islamist Marxists, ethnic separatists and secular
nationalists who make up Iran's opposition abroad.
And with US troops ensconced in the territory of
Iran's immediate neighbors, Washington could
leverage its strategic position to nurture armed
opposition to the Islamic republic.
Given
the mushrooming of think-tanks and forums aimed at
studying and fostering democratization in the
Middle East and around the world, the supporters
of a more-interventionist US policy toward Iran
could continue to offer Iranian dissidents and
estranged members of the Tehran government a
platform both to mobilize opposition within Iran
and to convince greater numbers of Westerners that
the Islamic republic truly is noxious. Clawson,
for one, argues for the use of covert operations
to induce "crippling accidents at Iranian nuclear
facilities that would set back the Iranian
program". [4] Of course the specter of a
preemptive strike by US or Israeli forces has
never been taken off the table, and with an
allegedly more belligerent government in Tehran,
this option may gain greater acceptance. If
Ahmadinejad's election results in a more dangerous
Iran, Washington will likely use all of these
tactics not only to challenge and contain Tehran
but to overthrow this founding member of the axis
of evil, as Bush labeled Iran, Iraq and North
Korea.
New currents in Iran's foreign
policy?
Whether military options are
logistically feasible or politically prudent in
the context of high oil prices, increasing
domestic dissatisfaction with the tragic situation
in Iraq or a uniform European reluctance to break
off negotiations with Iran, the very premise
presented by the supporters of regime change that
the 2005 presidential elections have fundamentally
altered the Islamic republic's foreign relations
is a faulty one. Iran's new president will not
necessarily radicalize Iranian politics,
especially the country's foreign policy. In fact,
a few days after his victory, Ahmadinejad,
probably in response to such fears, stressed that
he was in favor of ties with all states as long as
they were "fair and progressive relations".
Whatever Ahmadinejad's true intentions, a
pragmatic foreign policy is the probable outcome.
To begin with, the Islamic republic tends to
moderate ideologically driven politicians be they
democrats, Islamist radicals, supporters of a
centrally planned economy or privatization fans.
As the lead article by Saeed Laylaz in the
reformist newspaper Sharq explained, the Islamic
republic's system has the tendency of transforming
radicals, revolutionaries and fundamentalist
forces into pragmatists and moderates. [5] This is
likely to also be the case for the new
administration, which, despite its mission to
implement sweeping managerial changes, will face a
bureaucratic machine full of overlapping
institutions and competing interests. Any
government fueled by oil revenues tends to
sideline long-term plans and ideologies in favor
of stopgap measures and personal gain. Hence,
despite his supporters' aspirations and
Washington's fears, Ahmadinejad's cabinet will
face the same institutional dead ends that its
more reformist predecessor faced.
Even if
Ahmadinejad and his loyal supporters prove
impervious to these structural forces, the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs is controlled by
Supreme Leader Khamenei, and there is little
opportunity for the new and inexperienced
president to act independently. In fact, for much
of the last eight years, those who sought to
downplay Khatami's political powers and importance
- such as the Washington Institute for Near East
Policy and the American Enterprise Institute -
pointed out that foreign policy in Iran is not
implemented, let alone dictated, by the president.
The Iranian constitution places foreign
relations exclusively in hands of the supreme
leader. Thus, if Iran has taken a generally more
pragmatic approach to regional and international
affairs since the mid-1990s, we have Khamenei to
thank as much as Rafsanjani and Khatami.
Considering that Ahmadinejad is so closely allied
with Khamenei and supporters of the preeminence of
his office, it seems unlikely that the new
administration will do much more than follow the
official line laid down by the supreme leader, as
was Khatami's general pattern.
Khamenei,
meanwhile, has proven himself adept at balancing
his interest in remaining in power with Iranian
public opinion, which increasingly calls for
better relations with the international community.
Iran's generally quietist and unobtrusive stance
vis-a-vis the US invasions and occupations of
Afghanistan and Iraq illustrates its unwillingness
to play a rogue state role and suffer the
economic, if not military, repercussions.
Any claim, however, that Iran under
Ahmadinejad will be no different than under
Khatami or any other former president is an
exaggeration and ignores the non-ideological
differences between these administrations. The US
will face a more confident Islamic republic whose
political elites have maneuvered through eight
years of almost continual conflict and challenges.
Ahmadinejad's victory has forged the most
homogenous and uniformly conservative executive
branch, legislature and office of supreme leader
in the 27 years of Islamic rule.
Tehran
has good relations with the new Iraqi government
and has maintained negotiations with the European
powers while strengthening solid economic and
geostrategic ties with China, India and Russia.
The Khatami government's prudent saving of oil
revenues over the past few years and prospects for
continued high oil prices will allow Tehran to
both paper over fundamental economic problems and
maintain its investment in technology, both
civilian and military.
Thus, Ahmadinejad,
who lacks Khatami's charm and his ability to quote
Western philosophers, will likely project a less
conciliatory foreign policy agenda and more self
confidence. If Bush continues to categorically
chide the Islamic republic and threaten its
sovereignty, then Ahmadinejad, who believes that
Iranians under the Islamic republic have all the
freedoms they need, will happily respond by using
these external threats to suppress dissent and
curtail public participation in the name of
national security.
With a seemingly
subservient president and potentially fewer
domestic critics and rivals in authoritative
positions, Khamenei may find greater political
opportunity to begin a rapprochement with the US.
Under Khatami, achieving major breakthroughs in
US-Iranian relations was a difficult task because
the Islamic republic's ideological and tactical
differences came to the surface and fueled
contentions by critics of US-Iranian detente that
the Islamic republic would collapse if Khatami had
his way.
Since Khatami was susceptible to
criticism from government conservatives that he
was not anti-imperialist enough, making too many
foreign concessions was politically risky.
However, with a unified conservative Islamic
republic, the prospects for meaningful and serious
US-Iranian negotiations may increase. Some argue
that peace in Israel and Palestine is more likely
when hardliners, such as Israeli Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon and fundamentalist group Hamas, are
part of the bargaining process. Likewise,
governments driven by neo-conservative leaders in
Washington and Tehran, rather than administrations
headed by the US Democratic Party and Iranian
reformists who can easily be labeled as soft and
accommodationist, may enable credible concessions
and discussions to take place. Of course, this
would require the Bush administration to sincerely
engage in deliberations and to compromise on
various issues.
Detente or democracy?
From the perspective of democrats in Iran,
detente is a frightening scenario and one that has
generated considerable debate among politically
astute Iranians, the majority of whom do not trust
the Bush administration's intentions and good will
"in standing with the Iranian people". A
neo-conservative rapprochement between Iran and
the US would lock out democratically minded
political figures from the negotiating table.
Issues such as freedom of speech and assembly
would be downplayed, and regional strategic
concerns - including promises the US would neither
invade Iran nor establish bases from which to
launch attacks against it - would be the dominant
points of discussion. If this occurs, "the tide of
freedom" could be stymied by the short term
pragmatic interests of both countries'
"neo-conservative" presidents.
Notes
[1] For a background to the elections,
see Kaveh Ehsani, Iran's Presidential
Runoff, Middle East Report Online, June
24, 2005 and Arang Keshavarzian and Mohammad
Maljoo, Paradox and Possibility in Iran's
Presidential Election, Middle East
Report Online, June 17, 2005.
[2] Patrick
Clawson, "Next Generation", New Republic Online,
June 30, 2005. Also see Barry Rubin, "Relations
with Iran Have Just Heated Up", Daily Star, July
5, 2005.
[3] Jamie Glazov, Symposium: The Showdown,
Front Page Magazine, July 29, 2005.
[4]
Ibid.
[5] Saeed Laylaz, "Enqelab-e
modiriyat?" Sharq, 22 Tir 1384 [July 12, 2005].
Arang Keshavarzian is an
assistant professor of political science at
Concordia University and a contributor to Foreign
Policy in Focus.
(Posted with
permission from Foreign Policy in Focus) |
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