As the Iranian revolution enters its 28th
year this month, the Islamic Republic stands at
the most critical stage of its history. While
power is being transferred to second-generation
revolutionaries, the country is on a collision
course with the United States over its
controversial nuclear program.
At the
center of this unfolding drama is the perplexing
figure of President Mahmud Ahmadinejad, who has
managed to isolate,
enrage and frighten important
domestic and external constituencies in the space
of only six months.
Left to their own
devices, Ahmadinejad and the second-generation
revolutionaries who stand behind him are likely to
change the Islamic Republic beyond recognition in
the years ahead. But the complicating factor in
all this is the increasing possibility of some
form of military confrontation between Iran and
the United States within two years. The key
question is whether Ahmadinejad and his inner
circle believe that military confrontation serves
their long-term political and socio-economic
agenda.
A controversial
president Ahmadinejad's first six months as
president have had a mixed reaction. Domestically,
he has tried to buttress his position among his
core constituency, namely the urban poor and the
lower classes who rallied around his calls for the
revival of the Iranian revolution's egalitarian
message.
While it is clearly too early to
judge his performance as a champion of a more
egalitarian society, it is important to point out
that the Ahmadinejad government has not undertaken
a single serious policy that would reverse the
country's widening wealth gap. That said, there
has been no let-up in the populist rhetoric and
sloganeering that marked his election campaign.
Lack of progress on the economic and
social-justice front notwithstanding, Ahmadinejad
has introduced massive changes to the face and
operations of the executive branch. Virtually all
provincial governors have been replaced by
Ahmadinejad loyalists, who tend to be young and
hail from the Islamic Republic's security
establishment, in particular the Islamic
Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC - or the
Sepah-e-Pasdaran).
Moreover, Ahmadinejad
has replaced most senior bankers and other
important figures in charge of the country's
finances. Furthermore, many of the country's most
experienced diplomats have been recalled from
abroad and replaced by less experienced figures,
with backgrounds in the Sepah-e-Pasdaran and other
security outfits.
At a superficial level
it appears that the Ahmadinejad government is
preparing for conflict and is reordering the
entire machinery of government accordingly. But
the changes introduced since August have a deeper
meaning; they signify the coming of age of
so-called "second-generation" revolutionaries who
were propelled into a position of leadership by
Ahmadinejad's surprise election victory last June.
The most important feature of the
second-generation revolutionaries is that they
developed their political consciousness in the
battlefields of the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s,
and not in the revolutionary struggle against the
Pahlavi regime. While they are intensely loyal to
the memory of the late ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini
(the leader of the Iranian revolution and founder
of the Islamic Republic), the second-generation
revolutionaries have tenuous ties (at best) to the
conservative clerical establishment that controls
the key centers of political and economic power.
Contrary to Western reporting,
Ahmadinejad's performance has generated more
controversy and ill-feeling within the corridors
of power in Tehran than in the crucible of Western
public opinion. Arguably, the most surprising
development in the past six months is the extent
of Ahmadinejad's independence and freedom of
action.
Originally dismissed as the lackey
of the clerical establishment, Ahmadinejad has
proved time and again that the only agenda that
drives him is his own. In the space of a few
months the former IRGC commander has emerged as
certainly the most independent and arguably the
most powerful president in the republic's 27-year
history. Even the Islamic Republic's spiritual
leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, does not seem to
have any appreciable influence over Ahmadinejad
and his inner circle.
While liberals and
reformists are, broadly speaking, in opposition to
the Ahmadinejad government, it is the conservative
establishment that has emerged as the
second-generation revolutionaries' most formidable
adversary. This is not surprising, given that the
latter aspire to reorder fundamentally the
socio-economic system in the Islamic Republic,
changes that would fatally weaken the
conservatives.
The conservative
establishment hoped to delay the coming of age of
the second-generation revolutionaries by
positioning Hashemi Rafsanjani in the presidency.
But Rafsanjani lost to Ahmadinejad, and he has
since played the part of a bad loser. Indeed, the
most vociferous opposition to the changes of the
past six months has been made by Rafsanjani in his
unofficial capacity as the public head of the
conservative establishment.
Consequences of war While
Iranian-US relations have reached an all-time low,
it is important to note that not even the most
committed anti-American elements in Iran see war
as a foregone conclusion. Near-universal public
support for the country's nuclear program
notwithstanding, Iranians are acutely aware of the
consequences of military confrontation with the
US. Insofar as Iran's standing in the region and
the wider world is concerned, the stakes could not
be higher.
Reformists and conservatives
alike are desperate to avoid war, for
diametrically opposed reasons. For the former,
aggression by the US would spell the end (at least
for another generation) of the country's emerging
grassroots democracy movement. Reformists fear
that war would entrench the conservatives
domestically and enable radical elements to seize
control of the country's foreign policy and
reverse the gains of the past 16 years.
Ironically, conservatives fear war more than the
reformists, even though they are confident of
being entrenched politically, at least in the
short term.
What the conservatives fear
losing (as a result of war and its concomitant
extreme international isolation) is their economic
and commercial privileges. Contrary to Western
reporting, the conservative establishment is not
held together by ideology, but by vast (and
impossibly complex) networks of patronage and
economic/commercial monopolies. These networks
thrive in a wider context of socio-economic
stability; stability that would be blasted away by
conflict and its repercussions.
The
central question is how the second-generation
revolutionaries led by Ahmadinejad view potential
conflict with the US. The answer to this question
lies in a better understanding of the
second-generation revolutionaries' background,
ideology and socio-economic agenda.
The
key personalities in this vast network are former
IRGC commanders; this includes Ahmadinejad and
nearly all members of his inner circle. This
military-ideological background is accentuated by
a strong sense of Iranian nationalism and Shi'ite
supremacism. Some influential second-generation
revolutionaries (including Ahmadinejad himself)
even harbor millenarian beliefs.
While
they do not welcome conflict, they see it as an
opportunity for a full-scale catharsis. To men
like Ahmadinejad, the Islamic Republic is
unconquerable; with its ability to project power
well beyond its size and resources, rooted in its
"undeterrable" nature.
On a more practical
level, the second-generation revolutionaries may
see conflict as an opportunity for entrenchment
and a context-generator for their long-term
socio-economic policies. They would certainly see
it as an opportunity to reverse Westernization and
bring Iran more in line with developments in the
wider Muslim world (where anti-Western feelings
proliferate and Islamic movements are increasingly
on the rise).
While a US assault on Iran
would probably engender all the above, it also
runs the risk of unleashing dynamics that will
elude the control of the Islamic Republic. First
and foremost, conflict will almost certainly
strengthen militant Islam in Iran, but of the kind
that even the most hardline elements in the regime
would not countenance.
There are already
many small networks of Shi'ite extremists in the
country, but they are kept in check by the
country's stability and an effective security
establishment. Any weakening of the state will
enable these networks to widen and deepen their
influence exponentially.
More worrying,
conflict would significantly strengthen Sunni
militancy on the country's fringes, particularly
in the near-lawless Sistan va Balochistan province
(bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan). A US assault
on Iran would run the very real risk of enabling
al-Qaeda to gain a foothold in the country.
While Ahmadinejad and his supporters are
correct in their belief that war would not fatally
undermine the Islamic Republic, it is not at all
clear whether they have properly thought through
the potential consequences.
At a time when
the Americans are giving every indication of
preparing for a long-term containment strategy
over the controversial Iranian nuclear program
(likely characterized by periodic bombings
followed by long spells of tense standoff - eerily
reminiscent of the containment strategy employed
against Iraq from 1991-2003), Iranians of all
political persuasions ought to be thinking of
avoiding this scenario, at unacceptable costs if
necessary.
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 his own.
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2006 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.
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