Page 2 of 2 The two 'kings' of
Iran By Sami Moubayed
president's
days look numbered. The threat of a US military
strike on Iran aggravates the situation.
People being touted as possible
presidential challengers and who are already
campaigning include: Ali Akbar Velayati, foreign
minister under Rafsanjani; Mahmud Nahavandian, a
US-educated economist and national-security
adviser; Mohammad Reza Aref, a vice president to
Khatami who holds a degree from Stanford
University in the US; and
Mohammad Ali Najafi, the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology-educated mathematician who was
minister of education under Rafsanjani. And
Ahmadinejad is certain to go for another term.
The Rafsanjani-supported candidates can be
expected to be vetoed by Khamenei, as he and the
Guardian Council can veto any candidate and even
propose alternatives. This happened with
Ahmadinejad in 2005.
Velayati, though, is
close to both Rafsanjani and Khamenei. At 62, the
veteran statesman with a pediatrics degree from
Johns Hopkins University served for 17 years as
foreign minister.
In 1981, when Khamenei
was president, he wanted to appoint Velayati as
prime minister, but the decision was overruled by
the Majlis (parliament). Velayati wanted to run in
the presidential elections in 2005 (and had a good
chance of winning) but backed out at the last
minute when it became clear that Rafsanjani was
running.
A week ago it was rumored that
Khamenei wanted to appoint Velayati vice
president, to replace the smart but colorless and
neutral economist, Parviz Dawoodi. The story was
even published in the Saudi daily Al-Hayat,
showing that it was serious talk coming out of
Tehran.
Had that happened, it would have
meant challenging the powers of Ahmadinejad.
Recently, Velayati was quoted as saying that
suspending uranium enrichment was not a red line
for the Islamic Republic, something that has been
echoed by Rafsanjani. This is in sharp contrast to
what Ahmadinejad has been saying for many months,
that no matter what happened, Iran would not give
up its right to uranium enrichment.
Several senior Iranian officials are even
considering exit strategies from the corner in
which Ahmadinejad has painted them over the
country's nuclear program. These include solutions
put forward by Russian President Vladimir Putin
and Mohammad ElBaradei, the director general of
the International Atomic Energy Agency. The first
calls for complete suspension, which is what it
will take to start negotiations between the US and
Iran, while the latter calls for the suspension of
activity but allows a face-saving operation of a
handful of centrifuges.
It would be wrong
to assume that the hardliners in Iran are few in
number, given the increasing influence of
Rafsanjani and other reformers. On the contrary,
they are on the rise, thanks to the president.
In recent weeks, in what is probably an
attempt to cover up for his failures in other
matters, Ahmadinejad authorized a massive
crackdown on students and young Iranians wearing
"un-Islamic" clothes. Hundreds of women wearing
short coats, tight shirts and tilted headscarves
that showed some hair were hauled into police
stations, resulting in a demonstration by more
than 2,000 students from Shiraz University.
Immediately, Ayatollah Mahmud Hashemi
Shahroudi, the head of the Iranian judiciary,
warned the police that the arrests must stop
because "they will backfire and have
counterproductive effects". He added that the only
result of such needless arrests would be "damage
to society".
The pro-reform newspaper
E'temad Melli carried an article by a female
journalist addressed to Ahmadinejad saying: "Are
our people's major problems of injustice and
poverty ... being resolved?" She reminded him that
during his election campaign in 2005 he had
promised to fight poverty, create jobs and
implement justice.
Another reform
columnist, Masoud Behnoud, asked: "Has the
government solved all problems, unemployment,
inflation, soaring prices, corruption, housing
shortage, etc to center its attention on women's
dress?"
In reality there is a lot of
tension in Iran and a great battle to balance
power between the "doves" and "hawks". And
Khamenei, while only 68, is known to be very ill,
so his succession has to be taken into account.
This heightens the importance of the struggle
between Ahmadinejad on the one side, Khatami and
Rafsanjani on another, and pro-Khamenei people
such as Velayati and Larijani on the fringes.
The Ahmadinejad group is powerful, but
certainly not as much as it was when it was backed
wholeheartedly by the grand ayatollah in 2005. The
Khatami reformist wing is weak, but popular in the
West, explaining why it needs to be allied with a
powerful Iranian heavyweight, who is both a leader
in business and politics, such as Rafsanjani. The
two men, along with former Majlis Speaker Mehdi
Karroubi, who heads the reformist National
Confidence Party, form a troika that Ahmadinejad
is having a hard time penetrating - or even
becoming a part of.
A figure allied to
this troika to watch is Sadeq Kharrazi, former
ambassador to France and ex-negotiator in Iran's
nuclear portfolio. Kharrazi is a pragmatic man who
once conducted secret talks with the Americans in
Cyprus, during the Khatami years, arranged by
Rafsanjani. The clout of this group, especially
after Khatami's recent visit to the United States
and Britain, is increasing.
But an event
that took place last week signals trouble for the
"doves" and suggests that Ahmadinejad might not be
as isolated as some would have it. Iranian secret
police arrested Mohammad Husayn Moussavian on May
1 on charges of espionage and passing on sensitive
information to foreign countries. Moussavian had
been ambassador to Moscow and Berlin and was a top
official in the nuclear portfolio during the
Khatami presidency and is a close friend of
Rafsanjani. The Iran Press Service quoted a
"well-informed source" as saying: "The arrest of
Mr Moussavian is a direct attack on Mr Hashemi
Rafsanjani. At the same time, no authority could
dare to take this decision without the prior
authorization of Mr Khamenei."
What does
this mean? Does it mean that at certain intervals,
when it comes to challenging Rafsanjani,
Ahmadinejad and Khamenei can work together? The
arrest of Moussavian would indicate this. But the
minute this common threat is eliminated - or
silenced - then the two "kings" will start working
to undermine each other.
For now,
Ahmadinejad is the weaker as he cannot - and will
not - come out to challenge the grand ayatollah
openly. This could change overnight, though,
should Khamenei die or become incapacitated. Then
it will be open season in Iran, and the world
might get to see some dirty laundry at last.
Sami Moubayed is a Syrian
political analyst.
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