It’s
good to see Mahmoud Ahmadinejad finally out of office. It was a shame that the
protest fallout of the last election didn’t succeed in ousting him. Instead the
thugs of the Revolutionary Guard were deployed and the demonstrations were
crushed. The emergence of Hassan Rouhani as the next President should not be
understood in separation from those events just four years ago. The violence of
the state remains a flagrant memory for Iranians. The spectrum of Iranian politics
may only be varying forms of conservatism. In this election it was particularly
so, as the ‘Supreme Leader’ Khamenei sought to ensure the range of candidate
was incredibly narrow. Even former President and veteran politician Rafsanjani
was barred from entering the race. Yet it was Ahmadinejad’s crony who was
rejected for an old ally of Rafsanjani and Khatami.
The
long-term future of the clerical regime will be on the mind of the ‘Supreme
Leader’, as it always has been, and it was clear that the continuity of the
Ahmadinejad era may not be the wisest way of proceeding. Mysterious charges
have come to pass against the outgoing President, which he will face in
November and that in itself is significant.[1]
It’s possible that the Islamic regime is looking to split the grass-roots
opposition of the Green movement. If a series of reforms are passed it may be a
way for the clerics to extend their rule by winning over more of the young and
women as a base. That’s one possibility as the support of conservative Iran in
conjunction with a police state may not be enough to guarantee the future of
the Islamic Republic. At the same time, it’s worth noting that the ‘Supreme
Leader’ may be able to offset serious reform at home through the Syrian
conflict. The safe bet might be on reformist gestures rather than any
substance.
As
Patrick Cockburn has observed, Tehran is fully behind the Assad regime because
the attempt at regime change in Syria is interpreted as a necessary
precondition for a strike on Iran and possibly its Shi’ite allies in Lebanon
and Iraq. In fact, the Iranian re
gime has just pledged 4,000 troops to the
defence of the Assad dictatorship.[2]
It’s astonishing that there can be a discourse on these events without any
regard for history. The motivations in Tehran for backing Assad to the bitter
end are hardly discussed. It is long forgotten now that the Syrians were the
only regional powers to support Iran (along with Israel incidentally) in the
savage war with Iraq in the 1980s. In those days the US found Saddam Hussein to
be an adequate ally against Khomeini’s Islamic regime. Yet once the Gulf War
came and went Hafez al-Assad became the preferred Arab despot for the
Washington tyrannophiles.
At
the same time, Ahmadinejad offered crumbs to the poor and needy he opted for
the Khomeini vision of Islamic Iran as the only alternative to the decadence of
Western liberalism. This is the alternative to the Khatami propositions to
normalise relations with Washington. It’s what has led Iran to forge alliances
with Caracas as well as Moscow and even Pyongyang. Yet there must be a tension
in the ruling-class of the country to allow for such a fluctuation between the
‘moderates’ and the ‘extremists’. The foreign policy of Iran remains completely
rational in the terms understood by Iran’s intelligentsia. The development of
nuclear power and the capability for nuclear weapons was originally a policy of
the Shah. After seizing power Khomeini immediately had the reactors shut down,
only to reluctantly reopen them once Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of
mass-destructions and Iran needed a deterrent. So this is an old story, nothing
new.
If
we examine history (itself a heresy in contemporary discourse) we find that we
have been here before. The previous government to Ahmadinejad was headed by
President Khatami and it posed as a shift to reform from the past
administrations. The aims were to normalise the Islamic Republic and resituate
it in the traditional role that Iran has played in the region. Elected in 1997 Mohammed
Khatami relied on the support of the women’s vote, as reformists typically do,
as well as the urban middle-classes. He convinced the ‘Supreme Leader’ to allow
him to run because the system requires a steam valve to release the political
tension built up after nearly two decades of conservative governments. It was a
politically expedient sales-pitch to a faux-cleric who was once President
himself. From all of this we can see that the Iranian leadership cannot be
taken as ‘irrational’ or ‘crazy’.
The
Khatami administration had no qualms with the structural adjustments to the
Iranian economy. Indeed, Khatami was eager to speed up the processes of
privatisation and deregulation which he had inherited from Rafsanjani. Likewise
the aim of re-establishing Iran in its traditional role required a
normalisation of relations with the US, as well as client-states like Israel
and Saudi Arabia. It shouldn’t be forgotten that the traditional role of Iran
was a ‘cop on the beat’ alongside mercenary-states such as Israel, Turkey and
Pakistan. This is the crowd to which Rouhani belongs. In these terms it’s easy
to see the appeal of the anti-imperial bluster with which Ahmadinejad straddled
Iran for nearly a decade. The former Mayor of Tehran promised the Iranian
people economic concessions, such as instituting pensions for the thousands of
women who work as carpet weavers and were blinded by their occupation by the
age of 40.[3]
The backbone of conservative populism in Iran is the rural and urban poor, precisely
those desperate enough to seek refuge in religion.
At
the same time, Ahmadinejad offered crumbs to the poor and needy he opted for
the Khomeini vision of Islamic Iran as the only alternative to the decadence of
Western liberalism. This is the alternative to the Khatami propositions to
normalise relations with Washington. It’s what has led Iran to forge alliances
with Caracas as well as Moscow and even Pyongyang. Yet there must be a tension
in the ruling-class of the country to allow for such a fluctuation between the
‘moderates’ and the ‘extremists’. The foreign policy of Iran remains completely
rational in the terms understood by Iran’s intelligentsia. The development of
nuclear power and the capability for nuclear weapons was originally a policy of
the Shah. After seizing power Khomeini immediately had the reactors shut down,
only to reluctantly reopen them once Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of
mass-destructions and Iran needed a deterrent. So this is an old story, nothing
new.
President
Khatami sought to normalise relations with the US by lending intelligence
support to the invasion of Afghanistan. It was saleable move as the Taliban had
butchered Shi’ites and killed Iranian diplomats after which Khatami acted to
prevent a war with Afghanistan. The Khatami government helped set up Hamid
Karzai as the US objectives shifted from retaliation for the World Trade Centre
attacks to regime change in Afghanistan. In return for these gestures Bush put
Iran on the ‘Axis of Evil’ for its sponsorship of groups like Hezbollah. That
was in early 2002 and months later when the US and Britain were looking for
support to invade Iraq the incorrigible Jack Straw flew to Tehran. The memory
of the insane war with Iraq was, and is, still haunting Iran. Khatami offered
to provide assistance – in the form of intelligence, logistics and advice – to
the forces looking to plunder Mesopotamia. The future of Iraq was no less
insignificant than that of Afghanistan.
Jack
Straw pitched the idea to Colin Powell, who found it appealing, but couldn’t
convince the White House to get behind the idea. It may have been arrogance on
the part of the Bush administration. Perhaps the Bushites feared the prospect
of an emboldened Iran and its influence filling the void left-over from Saddam
Hussein. In the end the US couldn’t hold-off elections and couldn’t prevent
Iran from having a hand in the future of Iraq. It may have been inevitable in a
predominantly Shi’a country. Neither Iran nor Iraq wants a re-run of the war
that took place in the 80s. The prospect of peaceful relations between Iran and
Iraq could lead to greater stability in the region, and that’s undoubtedly not
what the US wants. The possibility of a Shi’ite alliance across West Asia is
terrifying precisely because it could threaten the US control of the oil
spigot.
Despite
Washington’s intransigence the Khatami government sought a roadmap of improving
US-Iran relations. Khatami wanted to hold talks with the US and put everything
on the table. He offered to turn Hezbollah into a non-violent political
organisation which accepted the two-state peace settlement.[4]
In exchange Khatami hoped the US government would abolish all sanctions on Iran
and refrain from instigating regime
change in Tehran.[5]
It was drawn up through discussions between Khatami, Khamenei and others.
According to a BBC documentary on Iran’s recent political history the ‘Supreme
Leader’ actually gave his approval for 85% to 90% of the proposals. George W
Bush sent a sharp message to Tehran by refusing to acknowledge or engage with
the offer. The message was received and by the next election the ‘reformism’ of
Mohammed Khatami had been written-off as a failure. Onto the stage marched
Ahmadinejad with the blessing of the clerical establishment.
This article was later posted at the Third Estate on August 6th 2013.
Now
we have seen the process fall the other way. The terms Ahmadinejad spent in office
reaped no great results for Iran. The intransigence and aggression of the West
was hardly deterred by the absurd posturing of the crackpot statesman. Talk of
war has been a recurrent theme in discourse for Americans, Europeans and
Israelis. Meanwhile the huge costs incurred by the Iraq war meant the
possibility of war with Iran unfeasible for a long time. Later, the Bush
administration refused to back Ehud Olmert’s dream of bombing Iran’s nuclear
facilities.[6]
Yet the White House has since launched a campaign of assassination against
nuclear scientists in the country. The US has even gone as far as to remove the
MEK from its terrorist list.[7]
It was a sweet ‘Thank You’ for the group’s cooperation in the campaign of
bombing and killing Iranian scientists. It’s a strategy which has been coupled
with economic strangulation in the form of sanctions, which may keep the
Iranian people from rising up against the regime.
All
the while Tehran is no doubt very aware of the threat posed by US military
bases in neighbouring countries: the Fifth Fleet is based on Bahrain and the
island of Diego Garcia has been utilised to station bunker-busters and nuclear
submarines. It would be ridiculous to attribute any responsibility to Iran for
this aggression. Lebanon was the battlefield between Israel and Iran in 2006,
now it may be Syria’s turn. The effect of the Lebanon war was conservative in Iran;
the Syrian civil war may have similar consequences. Time will only tell. The
contradictions of Iranian society are turning, as always, in societies
everywhere, towards a conclusion which will only be obvious in hindsight. The
enemies of democracy in Iran include not just the ‘Supreme Leader’, but the US,
Israel and Britain as well. Whether or not we see war in coming decades is very
much up to us.
This article was later posted at the Third Estate on August 6th 2013.
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