27.07.2011

Reformists crave reconciliation

The Iranian regime is deeply divided, but what are the prospects for the democracy movement that filled the streets in 2009-10? National chair of Hands Off the People of Iran, Yassamine Mather, spoke to Mark Fischer

Given its potential importance, it seems odd that there has been so little said in the western media about the ongoing conflict between Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the supreme religious leader, Ali Khamenei. Why is this?

It can perhaps be explained by the attitude of the US administration, which seems to be playing a waiting game. Obviously, they will have followed these disputes, but they expect the system to disintegrate without much intervention from the US and at the moment they have other countries to worry about in the region.

However, this is a serious, ongoing struggle which shows no signs of abating and has actually started a process of political differentiation within the green movement between leaders looking for ‘reconciliation’ with the regime and the more militant, intransigent sections of its base. A number of developments indicate the scale of the crisis.

Just a month ago, Hamidreza Tarraghi, a member of the conservative Motalefeh party, announced that Iran’s supreme leader, ayatollah Khamenei, had appointed a panel to investigate “legal violations committed by the current administration”. Over the last two years, the majles, Iran’s Islamic parliament, has repeatedly accused Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government of violating the constitution. The Iranian president has countered by asserting that his administration is among the most law-abiding in the history of the Islamic Republic.

However, since Ahmadinejad’s well-publicised dispute with Khamenei over the appointment of ministers, every word that has passed the lips of the Iranian president has prompted criticism from the Islamic Republic’s clerical elite. Most recently, 100 MPs presented the speaker with a petition to summon him before parliament to answer questions over ‘irregularities’, such as the delay in establishing new ministries and accusations of being part of a so-called “deviant current” - the term used to describe the ideas of Ahmadinejad’s controversial chief of staff, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei. Meanwhile, a number of Ahmadinejad’s closest allies, including his nominee as deputy minister for foreign affairs, have been arrested and accused of financial corruption or links to the “deviant current”.

When ultra-conservative clerics called for the abolition of co-education in universities for the new academic year, Ahmadinejad attempted, bizarrely, to position himself amongst the ‘modernisers’. He called for the immediate cancellation of plans to segregate the sexes at selected universities and called the move “shallow and unwise” on his website.

Two weeks ago, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards, general Mohammad Ali Jafari, said that his force is now in charge of dealing with this “deviant current”. Jafari also indicated that the Guards might allow the participation of greens in next year’s parliamentary elections, provided they accepted certain conditions: “Reformists who have not crossed the regime’s ‘red lines’ would be allowed to run”. This was a reference to former president Mohammad Khatami, who, together with another ex-president, Hashemi Rafsanjani, has used the rift between Khamenei and Ahmadinejad to call for “forgiveness” on both sides of the 2009 conflict. Apparently, Iranians who protested against the rigged 2009 presidential election results should forgive the supreme leader and in return he would forgive them!

Unsurprisingly, Ahmadinejad objected to Jafari’s comments and retaliated by criticising “illegal” border crossings used by agencies associated with the Revolutionary Guards to smuggle goods into and out of Iran. According to the Iranian president, this is generating billions of dollars in illicit profits and he pointedly used the term “brothers” when referring to these smugglers, implying they were with security and intelligence services. Promptly, Jafari condemned these claims as “deviant.”

The possibility of the Guards ‘switching sides’ and throwing their weight behind the reformists is a real one. It certainly appears as if Ahmadinejad is losing the support of his closest allies amongst their senior commanders. These are people who supported him in the elections of 2005 and 2009 in exchange for increased political and economic clout.

However, the RGs have always had divided loyalties. Some low-ranking officers support the reformists, while others are loyal to the president. However, more of the senior commanders have always backed ayatollah Khamenei as the supreme religious leader and in that respect nothing has changed. It now seems likely that Khamenei is trying to allow the return of some reformists - or at least what some call ‘loyal reformists’ - to the ruling circles in order to weaken the political faction loyal to Ahmadinejad in the 2012 majles elections and then the presidential elections of 2013.

On July 18, Morteza Motahari, a leading conservative MP, even went as far as to say all reformists with the exception of green leaders Mir-Hossein Moussavi and Mehdi Karroubi should be allowed to participate as candidates in the coming elections. Clearly the enemies of the supreme leader’s current enemy could become his friends!

How is all this impacting on the pro-democracy movement? And how does it relate to the recent political prisoners’ hunger strike?

We must remember that the green movement is not a monolithic force. It is rainbow coalition of many trends with very different views. Its two main leaders are under strictly monitored house arrest and their position on the crisis in the regime is not actually widely known. Amongst their supporters the divisions are very clear.

It seems as if at the time of the hunger strike in late June, or possibly before it, Khatami and Rafsanjani had entered into a deal with the office of the supreme leader, looking for a way to forge ‘reconciliation’. This would explain the reformist leaders’ calls on the hunger strikers to end their protest in order to avoid an “escalation of the conflict”, as they put it. However, the reformists are not united on this issue.

In early July, a senior reformist who is held in Evin prison, Mostafa Tajzadeh, warned against participating in any election that is not “fully open”. Tajzadeh appears to be of the opinion that if Ahmadinejad and rival conservatives do not allow reformist participation they will fall out more among themselves. Tajzadeh claims that “the narrative of the green movement has changed the whole affair ... either the elections should be free for all parties or we should not participate and should leave them to play out the conflicts among themselves.” However, it isn’t clear what he means by “all parties”. One assumes he is referring to ‘reformist’ Islamic parties who will not challenge religious interference in the affairs of the state.

The bulk of supporters of the green movement are totally opposed to any compromise with the supreme leader. Young militants, bloggers and women activists have wasted no time distancing themselves from Khatami and Rafsanjani. Many point out that after so many deaths, so many arrests, torture and rapes in prison it would be criminal to look for ‘reconciliation’. One blogger asked Khatami, why should those who have been tortured apologise to the supreme leader? What have they got to be sorry about?

Of course, although the whole notion of reconciliation has been criticised, many reformists are now excusing it by claiming it could create the conditions for the release of all political prisoners, freedom of the press, etc. Also, they make the point that, naturally, they will not just cave in and join the electoral process unconditionally - that would be simply a capitulation.

How do you see the protest movement evolving?

In some ways, this period is helping to clarify where everyone in the anti-dictatorial movement stands in relation to the Islamic regime and the role of the supreme leader.

These divisions first appeared in December 2009 in the demonstrations known as ‘Ashoura’. The crowd were angry about political executions, the violence that greeted their protests from the regime’s thugs. They started questioning the role of the supreme leader. ‘Death to Khamenei’, became the slogan of the day. Moussavi, and also to a certain extent Karroubi, as well as all the leaders of the green movement, did all they could to distance themselves from this slogan.

In fact, their next move was to farcically advocate ‘silent’ demonstrations. It is quite clear that many of these individuals realise the downfall of the supreme leader is tantamount to the collapse of the entire Islamic order. So clearly ‘reformism’ has now become a serious obstacle to any form of change, gradual or otherwise. However, the overwhelming majority of the demonstrators, indeed the majority of the country’s population, do not share the ‘reformist’ leaders’ conservatism on this issue. On the contrary, they want the overthrow of the entire religious state, even if they disagree about what will replace the clerical regime.

For Iranian youth, the issue isn’t just Ahmadinejad’s presidency, but the interference of the state in the every aspect of their daily life. So one can see how recent events and Ahmadinejad’s fall from grace have negatively impacted on the ‘reformist’ leaders, but not their supporters. Khatami and his allies want to return to the ‘good old days’ of ‘reformist’ governments cooperating with the conservatives as different pro-regime factions. But the population of Iran at large has moved on. They want a different regime, not simply different faces at the top. The green movement is at the crossroads and many of the ideas and slogans put forward by its leaders are being challenged.

How are they fighting back?

This leadership has been constantly campaigning against revolution. They keep repeating, ‘We want peaceful, gradual change - we don’t want violence’; ‘Revolutions are violent and Iranians don’t want more violence.’ The young protestors of 2009-10 are now questioning many of these ideas. Websites, social networking and Twitter are being used effectively to scotch the idea that it is protestors who cause violence, as opposed to the state, its military and security forces.

A straw in the wind came when Moussavi’s spokesperson, Amir Arjomand, claimed that his boss, who was at the time the country’s prime minister, was not aware of the mass execution of political prisoners in the late 1980s (some 8,000-12,000 - mainly leftwingers and members of Mujahedin - were executed in the Islamic government’s dungeons). Arjomand’s comments were met with a storm of protest - not just from the traditional left, but mainly from young supporters of the green movement itself.

At a time of severe economic hardship, as the combined effect of sanctions and the end of food and fuel subsidies takes its toll, the market economy advocated by some green leaders is also being challenged. It is always difficult to predict what will happen in Iran. However, I have no doubt that if the leaders of the green movement decide to participate in another fraudulent election, they will thoroughly alienate the vast bulk of their young supporters.

You mentioned that the US may be playing a ‘wait and see’ game. But what about Israel?

The US isn’t being totally passive. Sanctions are being ratcheted up gradually. Iran Air and a number of banks are on the latest US hit list. Again, as we have repeatedly emphasised, these impact on Iran’s people far more than their rulers.

Israel is a different matter. There are once again rumours of a possible Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear installations. According to a former operative of the Central Intelligence Agency, Israel could launch a military strike on Iran before the United Nations general assembly votes to recognise the existence of a Palestinian state in the autumn. This would be a disaster for the pro-democracy movement - we must oppose it in every way we can.