Domestic conflict shifts into higher gear
By Farideh Farhi
HONOLULU - Although the tumult that has gripped Iran since the contested June
12 election has never abated, two recent occurrences have highlighted the
further sharpening of internal conflict and the government's inability to
restore stability in the face of creative ways the opposition has learned to
use the symbols of the Islamic Republic to sustain itself.
The uproar over former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani's public insistence
on the regime's need to respect popular demands and the government-staged
outrage over the burning of a picture of the Islamic revolution's founder,
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, during University Student Day demonstrations on
December 7, have made clear that the political crisis at the heart of the
establishment is intensifying.
The politics surrounding both of these occurrences suggest a dangerous deadlock
and an urgent need for renegotiating political power among the various
contenders, as the government seems unable to bring a degree of calm and
political efficacy to the Iranian political system. However, this need has yet
to translate into a systemic will to overcome the political paralysis that has
taken hold.
As such, recent events in all likelihood augur the entry into a new phase in
which direct public confrontation among key players working within the system
will become the norm, despite the explicit, even if half-hearted, plea by
Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, for calm and de-escalating the
cycle of recrimination.
The latest events are important because they reveal critical aspects of the
continuing turmoil in Iran. The burning of Khomeini's picture, in and of
itself, would not have been of much significance as the radicalization of some
elements of any protest movement in the face of repression is not unusual.
What made the occasion significant was the decision by the
government-controlled Iranian television (IRIB) to broadcast scenes of the
burning as a means to create an environment in which all "true believers" of
the revolution of 1979 could mobilize and express their outrage publicly.
The intent of this staged outrage is twofold. On the one hand, by focusing on
the rejection of the iconic founder of the republic, government supporters want
to show that even if the protest movement started as a law-abiding movement
against the conduct of the election, it has now turned into a radical movement
intent on undermining the Islamic Republic.
On the other hand, by forcing opposition leaders to pledge public allegiance to
Khomeini, hardline forces hope to discredit them before an increasingly angry
younger population, thus demonstrating that their ultimate loyalties to the
system are no different from those engaged in the ongoing crackdown.
This strategy has backfired, as have so many others, because of the ability of
the opposition movement to appropriate the symbols and icons of the Islamic
Republic and turn them against the government. To be sure, all opposition
leaders have denounced the insult to Khomeini, but they have also questioned
the intent behind the IRIB broadcasts.
More important, both opposition leaders, Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi
Karroubi, as well as the Association of Combatant Clerics - an organization
headed by former president Mohammad Khatami - immediately asked for permission
to stage an independent demonstration on Friday in support of Khomeini's
legacy. These would run parallel to a state-controlled demonstration called by
the Coordinating Council for Islamic Propagation.
This request places the Ministry of Interior, which has so far refused to grant
permits for any opposition-led demonstration, in a difficult position. After
all, the opposition's ability to protest and be present in the public sphere
has been precisely what the government has been unable to control or prevent in
the past six months because of the clever way protestors have participated in
government-sanctioned demonstrations designed to celebrate key dates in the
history of the Islamic Republic.
Ironically, by positioning themselves as the true heirs to Khomeini, the
opposition leaders have received much help from hardliners who, despite their
professed allegiance to Khomeini, have shown no love for his family.
The publication house in charge of Khomeini's writings and edicts, whose deputy
head questioned the wisdom of the burning picture broadcasts, has been vilified
in hardline newspapers and threatened by right-wing members of parliament with
investigation. At the same time, Khomeini's grandson, who runs his mausoleum,
was wrongly accused of leaving the country instead of defending his
grandfather.
This public contest over who is more devoted to Khomeini's legacy has been
complemented with a very sharp exchange occasioned by a frank speech delivered
by Rafsanjani on December 5 in Mashad in which he bemoaned the pitting of the
Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps and Basij militia against "university and
high school students, professors, teachers, managers, workers, shopkeepers, and
men and women".
Recalling the words of the Prophet Mohammad to Imam Ali on the day the latter
was chosen by the former as his successor, as narrated in the Shi'ite
tradition, moreover, Rafsanjani explicitly stated, "You have the right to
guardianship from God, but if people accept [it], manage; and if [they do] not
accept, do not impose yourself and allow them to manage their society the way
they want."
Rafsanjani's words provoked a public rebuke by Intelligence Minister Heidar
Moslehi, who read more into the former president's speech, suggesting that he
was effectively calling for the removal of Khamenei himself if people do not
want him. Accusing Rafsanjani of abetting "fitna" - sedition or
conspiracy - against the Islamic Republic, Moslehi also unwittingly
acknowledged the power of the opposition by comparing the "fitna" to an
iceberg, only the top of which can be seen above the water.
Others have followed suit in attacking Rafsanjani, who currently serves as
chair of both the Expediency Council and the Council of Experts.
Mohammad Yazdi, former head of the judiciary and current member of the Guardian
Council, demanded that Rafsanjani "reduce his distance with the leader", while
Ruhollah Hosseinian, a hardline member of parliament, insisted that Rafsanjani,
along with Mussavi and Karrubi, was too small to be made a martyr.
This implicitly, if unwittingly, acknowledged the fear among the government's
supporters that the arrests of the opposition leaders will only deepen Iran's
political crisis, a fear that was echoed on Wednesday by the new head of Iran's
judiciary, Sadeq Amoli Larijani, who insisted that "the judiciary has enough
files against them, and if the system deals with them with tolerance and
kindness, do not interpret it as ignorance".
Khamenei appears increasingly unable to control the situation. Speaking on
Sunday, he pleaded for calm and avoiding inflammatory language while, at the
same time, he talked of "purge ... of former brothers" or "those who insist on
distancing themselves from the system".
Meanwhile, the inability of the political system Khamenei heads to even
announce the names of individuals who engaged in publicly acknowledged acts of
torture and murder in a prison he himself ordered closed last summer has
underlined the growing sense that the government has become paralyzed.
Accountability for the abuses committed at Kahrizak prison has been perhaps the
most easily accommodated demand of the protesters, but the government's
inability or unwillingness to respond is seen as additional evidence of its
inflexibility and paranoia.
Where all this will end is difficult to predict. What is clear is that, at
least at the level of public discourse, almost all the taboos of the Islamic
Republic have been broken. Stellar revolutionaries like Rafsanjani, Mussavi,
Karrubi and Khatami refuse to back down from their criticisms of the way
post-election protests have been handled.
In turn, they and their families are accused of abetting those who are
conspiring against the Islamic Republic; Khomeini's family of tarnishing the
founder's legacy. And there is little in sight to suggest that those who
continue to accuse and dish out violence have any coherent strategy for getting
out of the deepening crisis that they helped provoke six months ago by refusing
to address any of the protesters' grievances.
Farideh Farhi is an independent scholar and affiliate of the Graduate
Faculty of Political Science at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa.
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