Iran
vote lets Khamenei pull
strings By Mahan Abedin
The elections to the ninth Islamic
Consultative Assembly (Iran's national parliament)
generated enormous interest in the global media
for two reasons. First, the poll was seen as a
quest for legitimacy by Iran's rulers following
the disputed presidential elections of June 2009.
And for the first time in three decades, Iranian
elections appeared to be a reductive contest
between conservative groups.
While these
observations contain strong grains of truth, much
of the analysis has failed to take sufficient
account of the deeper consequences of the
elections. Last Friday's election was an important
turning point in the 33-year history of the
Islamic Republic in so far as they illuminate the
likely mid to long term trajectory of Iranian
politics.
As Asia Times Online predicted
on July 10, 2009, in "A leaner meaner Iranian
regime"
(http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KG10Ak02.html),
the Islamic Republic has spent the past 32 months
shedding excess
weight and infusing its
key institutions and social bases with greater
levels of cohesion and unity. Last Friday's
polling was a critical milestone in that process
inasmuch as they institutionalize the shift toward
maximum regime unity.
This decisive move
toward regime unity has two key actual and
potential attributes. The first is the actual
greater empowerment of the leader of the Islamic
Revolution, Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei and the
second is the Islamic Republic's potential (and
likely) adoption of the authoritarian state model.
More than three decades after its
founding, the Islamic Republic appears to be
eschewing the populist democratic model for the
classic authoritarian system marked by minimal
popular participation and a dominant state. This
significant shift will have profound consequences
across a wide range of political and economic
factors, in addition to adding greater rigor and
robustness to the country's foreign policy.
A 'principalist' affair The
mainstream Western media has made a number of
false or inaccurate statements on the nature of
the elections and the result. While it is true the
polling was centered on a contest between two
rival conservative groups (or "principalist" as
they prefer to be known), the central divide
between these blocs was not defined by their
support (or lack thereof) of the leader Ayatollah
Khamenei or President Mahmud Ahmadinejad.
Indeed, both the mainstream right wing
United Principalist Front (UPF) and the hardcore
right Islamic Revolution Steadfastness Front
(IRSF) proclaimed virtually unconditional support
for Ayatollah Khamenei in his role as the Valiyeh
Faqih (ruler jurisconsult).
The real
divide between these blocs is the extent to which
they prioritize ideology over pragmatism. The
mainstream UPF (which is set to dominate the
290-member Majlis) is composed of an assortment of
conservative and right-wing groups which are
careful to balance ideology with expediency. The
IRSF meanwhile is an amalgam of hardcore
right-wing groups and high profile ideologues and
politicians who appear to eschew any pretensions
to pragmatism or expediency.
This sharp
divide has given rise to speculation amongst
informed Iranian political analysts as to whether
the "principalist" term can apply to both blocs.
Some prefer to speak of a new divide in Iranian
politics; one between "principalists" (UPF) and
"idealists" (IRSF).
This contest was never
between the supporters of Khamenei and
Ahmadinejad. There is no such contest in the
Islamic Republic. The president has fallen out of
favor with the establishment precisely because he
appeared to be opposing the will of the leader
last April by refusing to reinstate Heydar
Moslehi, the intelligence minister who he had
sacked.
More broadly, both the UPF and the
IRSF have taken a strong stand against the
so-called "deviationist current", a loosely
defined cabal of senior politicians who espouse
controversial and eccentric views on topics
ranging from Velayat-e-Faqih (rule of the
jurisconsult - the cornerstone of Iran's Islamic
system) to nationalism. The principalists accuse
Ahmadinejad of accommodating this deviationist
current at the commanding heights of government.
The Western media was not entirely right
to report that the reformists had been excluded
from the elections. Strictly speaking, the
reformists as an institutional element in Iranian
politics largely boycotted the polls. But the
first round of voting has already returned more
than 30 self-described reformists to parliament.
But these reformists are regarded as
sufficiently "safe" by the establishment inasmuch
as they are not institutionally tied to the
country's official reform movement. Some of them
are remnants of the Khat-e-Imam (Imam's Line) of
the 1980s, and thus diehard leftists. The bulk of
the Khat-e-Imam coalition (in concert with broader
elements of the Islamic left) undertook a dramatic
ideological transformation in the 1990s by
metamorphosing into reformists.
The
removal of the reformists as an institutional
force in parliament will give the principalists
and the idealists the opportunity to consolidate
the right wing's hold over the legislature. The
most immediate result of this consolidation is
likely to center on joint efforts to apply maximum
pressure on Ahmadinejad's government with a view
to containing the so-called "deviationist current"
and preparing the ground for a principalist
takeover of the executive branch of government in
the June 2013 presidential elections.
Imam Khamenei The man at the
center of the drive toward maximum regime cohesion
is Ayatollah Khamenei, who has held the office of
Valiyeh Faqih since June 1989. Over the past 22
years his power has increased steadily to the
point that he now appears to be all-powerful.
Multiple forces and factors have elevated
this 72-year-old Shi'ite cleric to be the most
powerful man in the Middle East. The leader
himself set the tone for a new style of politics
in the Islamic Republic in his historic Friday
Prayer speech of June 19, 2009, in the immediate
aftermath of the disputed presidential elections.
Tacitly acknowledging the collapse of old
factional politics, Khamenei tried (and succeeded)
in aligning three critical components underpinning
the Islamic Republic's strength; namely dense
institutional arrangement, ideological vigor and a
mass base.
In the 1990s, during the first
decade of his rule, Khamenei appeared to be an
embattled ideological leader struggling to contain
a wide range of reformist and technocratic
political forces in the Islamic republic, led by
Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami. In the
2000s, Khamenei's position strengthened
considerably as right wing factions staged a
comeback and broad swathes of the regime's
considerable mass base turned against the
reformists.
Despite persistent reports to
the contrary, Khamenei is in relatively good
health and is expected to live for at least
another decade. It is during this third (and
possibly final) decade of his rule that he is
likely to exert maximum influence on Iran's and
the region's destiny.
The reformists
complain that Khamenei has failed to act as an
impartial arbiter in so far as he has facilitated
a set of conditions that has given the Islamic
right unassailable advantages over the Islamic
left. More radical reformists accuse Khamenei of
acting as a dictator and of systematically
destroying the democratic features of the Islamic
Republic.
Irrespective of the truth or
accuracy of these accusations, it is important to
point out that they do not reflect majority
opinion and feeling in the Islamic Republic.
Indeed, irrespective of their factional
affiliation, the bulk of Islamic Republic
loyalists regard Seyed Ali Khamenei as the saviour
of the Islamic Revolution. They praise him for
transforming a weak and battle weary state (in
1989) to a dominant regional power, in the space
of two decades.
To many Islamic Republic
loyalists, Khamenei more than anyone, even more
than the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini,
represents the essence and the will of the Islamic
Republic. Of late there has been a concerted
effort in some sections of the Iranian media to
bestow the title of "Imam" upon Khamenei, meaning
that at the very least he is now on a par with the
late Ayatollah Khomeini.
As the Islamic
Republic inches toward its 40th birthday, it is
"Imam" Khamenei who will be the critical link in
harnessing the quest for regime cohesion toward
the higher goal of consolidating the Islamic
Republic's transformation from a populist to an
authoritarian state.
The demise of
democracy Iranian political scientists and
analysts readily acknowledge the ideological and
systemic tensions between the Islamic Republic's
democratic and theocratic features and components.
The point of contention between them centered on
which component would eventually emerge on top,
with a slim majority betting on democracy.
The faith in democracy was certainly the
driving force of the reformist movement which
consistently argued that the Islamic Republic
possesses the innate capacity to make the
transition to a fully-fledged indigenous form of
democracy. The right wing, in tandem with the
majority of Islamic Republic loyalists, countered
that the ultimate destination of reformist
aspiration was Western-style liberal democracy,
and not some ill-defined indigenous brand of the
concept.
As it happens democracy did not
end up on top, as evidenced by the eradication of
reformists as an institutional force in Iranian
politics. This does not mean that democratic and
theocratic tensions have been resolved forever,
but they have certainly been suspended in favor of
the latter.
By any objective standard, the
theocratic component is likely to prevail over a
long period, and at least as long as the current
Valiyeh Faqih (Khamenei) is alive. But looking
into the very distant future, the Islamic
Republic's survival will depend on the extent to
which it can deliver a durable indigenous form of
authoritarian rule.
Until the summer of
2009 the ideological nature of the Iranian regime
was tempered by a genuine (albeit embattled)
democratic impulse which intermittently produced
real opportunities for radical change, in
particular in May 1997 (when reformists came to
power) and most dramatically in June 2009 when the
so-called green movement was born.
As a
result of this peculiar set of political impulses
and traditions - reflected in the Islamic
Republic's dense institutional set up -
post-revolutionary Iran defied the best efforts of
the world's leading political scientists to
categorize it within a democracy/autocracy
spectrum.
While the path toward
full-fledged authoritarianism is now open, the
right wingers and the ideologues in control of
Iranian politics are likely to face considerable
obstacles in this process. Foremost, they will
have to overturn three decades of intermittent and
embattled democratic experience. Significant
sections of the Iranian public - in particular the
urban middle class - have got used to influencing
the country's destiny, and they are unlikely to
give up this right without a fight.
However, from a strategic standpoint, a
wide range of political, geopolitical, economic
and demographic factors tip the odds in favor of a
successful transition to authoritarianism.
At the political level, if we assume that
one of the key divides in Iranian politics is the
battle between civil society actors and proponents
of a strong state, then the latter have a clear
advantage. Indeed, it is widely recognized that
the Iranian state is stronger than it has ever
been in the past two centuries.
This links
to the economic and demographic domains, inasmuch
as absent a strong private sector and a
diversified economy, Iran's young population will
look to the state to deliver a decent or at least
bearable standard of living, especially in the
face of crippling international sanctions. From a
demographic point of view, it is the same young
population - who were not directly exposed to the
divisive experience of the Iranian revolution -
which can be politically and ideologically
manipulated by a resourceful authoritarian state.
Finally, in the geopolitical domain, Iran
is now set on a decade of covert - and possibly
direct - warfare with Israel and the United
States. The tremendous stresses and losses
resulting from these conflicts will mobilize all
the key dynamics in Iranian politics and society
in favor of the authoritarian state.
Mahan Abedin is an analyst of
Middle East politics.
(Copyright 2012
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