Although the Iranian media are awash with
talk of "tremors" following Russian President
Vladimir Putin's historic visit last week, and
some going as far as linking the sudden
resignation of Ali Larijani, Iran's chief nuclear
negotiator, with Putin's two-day trip to Tehran,
the one question that has not been formulated is
whether or not Iran has been jolted into a new
realization that it needs its own Putin.
Far from far-fetched, the fast-paced
post-Putin developments, principally in the realm
of nuclear and foreign diplomacy, indicate
that
Iran may be learning a quick lesson that would
undoubtedly benefit the beleaguered administration
of President Mahmud Ahmadinejad, at least in the
short run.
Ahmadinejad's replacement of
Larijani with his close confidant, Saeed Jalili,
to head the nuclear negotiation team, within days
of Putin's visit, should be considered as more
than mere coincidence. Rather, given the fact that
Putin belittled Ahmadinejad by bypassing him and
submitting his nuclear proposal to the spiritual
leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Ahmadinejad's
counteracting it by solidifying his grip on the
nation's nuclear diplomacy is, in fact, hardly
surprising.
Yet this delicate but
important point has not been taken into
consideration by Ahmadinejad's critics, including
the 183 members of the Parliament (Majlis) who
have signed a letter praising Larijani and openly
questioning the judgment of replacing him at this
critical hour. Another leading politician, former
foreign minister and current adviser to Khamenei,
Ali Akbar Velayati, has expressed a similar
sentiment, although not half as critical, in a
press interview, saying that "it would have been
better" if this change (of Larijani with Jalili)
had not happened.
But with Larijani
somewhat restored, albeit with a new hat as the
representative of Khamenei, and his future input
in nuclear decision-making seemingly guaranteed,
so is the increased role and influence of
Ahmadinejad, who may need to act more and more
like Putin to advance Iran's national interests.
Thus the "Putin model" and its
applicability, feasibility and relevance to the
Iranian milieu. Sure, there are vast and important
differences between today's Russia and Iran, one
being an integral part of (Christian) Europe and
run by an authoritarian semi-democracy that is
secularist, compared to Iran's theocratic Islamic
Republic. The question, however, is less in terms
of what Iran and Russia share in political culture
and more in terms of the political power structure
that has clearly benefited Russia and aspects of
which can be replicated in countries such as Iran.
In hindsight, then, it may be appropriate
to mention a subtle "Putinization" of Iran, with
Ahmadinejad trying to achieve a badly-needed
centralization of decision-making authority that
until now has been absent. The Putinization
phenomenon refers first and foremost to
Ahmadinejad's current quest, reflected in his
attempt to centralize nuclear decision-making and
to overcome the multiple sources of influence that
in effect dissipate the diplomatic prowess of
Iran, instead of adding to it.
Clearly,
the political bargaining process inside the
government that has allotted a new responsibility
to Larijani has its own perils, and here a sign of
warning has been raised by Ali Khorram, a foreign
policy adviser, who has emphasized the need for
"unity of voice" and "absolute coordination" among
the nuclear negotiation team. Khorram and a number
of other Iranian pundits are realistically
concerned that the nuclear negotiation team may
soon be riven by factional strife, leading to
paralysis of Iran's diplomacy.
That may
not be so, however, and deft statecraft by
Ahmadinejad and Khamenei and others may culminate
in a single voice on the nuclear question, as long
as the leader has given his blessing to
Ahmadinejad's forcing Larijani's departure.
Ahmadinejad must now withstand the avalanche of
public criticism of his move and convince the
whole country that he and his foreign policy team
can deliver the goods. So far, his record has been
at best "mixed" to "fair" (see Ahmadinejad scores 'fair' in
mid-term report, Asia Times Online,
October 11, 2007).
Needless to say, there
are significant, and perhaps insurmountable,
roadblocks to any Putinization of the political
process, given the complex concentric multiple
centers of power and Iran's clerical hierarchy
militating against vesting too much power in the
hands of a non-clergy. Nonetheless, the sheer
weight of domestic, economic and foreign problems
and priorities dictate this process and discretely
rationalize it.
From a strictly
"organizational" point of view, it makes sense to
delegate more power to the executive branch headed
by the president, and Khamenei may have consented
to Larijani's replacement precisely on this
ground, and not based on factional or other
similar considerations.
Still, from the
vantage point of "bargaining process", another
foreign policy model in international relations,
the leader's sanctioning of Larijani's replacement
and, at the same time, indirectly reinstating
Larijani under his own mantle, the Putin model
appears both less attractive and even less likely,
simply because of important built-in mechanisms to
offset Ahmadinejad's power already put in place.
Providing a clue to the evolution of
Iran's political system, no matter how the pundits
put it, Ahmadinejad's control has grown and will
continue to grow, reflecting an active and
assertive executive branch that owes its dynamism
as much to its internal, self-generated
initiatives as to external influences, including
Putin's. After all, historically, crisis
situations serve the purpose of centralization of
power, and even US history is punctuated with
several such examples dating to Abraham Lincoln
during the American Civil War in the mid-19th
century, and Iran is not an exception.
However, by "Putinization of Iran" we do
not simply mean an effort from the top to cause a
greater concentration of power, though that is
certainly a key and salient aspect of it. But the
process is broader and inclusive of a
"presidential cult of personality" hitherto absent
in the Islamic Republic. This may invoke the
dreadful images of Stalinism, all the more reason
for Ahmadinejad and his team to avoid too close an
analogy and to be constantly aware of the
significant distinctions between the Putin model
and the Stalin model.
Putin is far
shrewder than Stalin ever was in international
bargaining and that is a key element of the "Putin
model" that needs to be taken into consideration
by the Iranians who want to emulate and replicate
Putin's style of leadership in Iran. The essence
of the Putin model is, after all, a question of
political style.
Kaveh L
Afrasiabi, PhD, is the author of After
Khomeini: New Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy
(Westview Press) and co-author of "Negotiating
Iran's Nuclear Populism", Brown Journal of World
Affairs, Volume XII, Issue 2, Summer 2005, with
Mustafa Kibaroglu. He also wrote "Keeping Iran's
nuclear potential latent", Harvard International
Review, and is author of Iran's Nuclear
Program: Debating Facts Versus Fiction.
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