This man is the new Iran president, he just made India’s job a lot tougher
C. RAJA MOHAN
Posted online: Sunday, June 26, 2005 at 0203 hours IST
NEW DELHI, JUNE 25: Ahmadinejad is 48, he invokes the Revolution, makes Washington nervous, is praised by hardline Islamic groups from across the world. New Delhi’s tightrope between the new Tehran and a friendly US
As New Delhi prepares to send the customary message of congratulations to the hardline conservative president-elect in Tehran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, its backroom boys will pore over the unpredictable consequences of the political tsunami unleashed by the elections in Iran.
Rapprochement with Iran in the mid-1990s has been a major accomplishment of India’s foreign policy. The blossoming partnership between Delhi and Tehran is bound to come under diplomatic stress if the newly energised forces of Iranian conservatism drift into a confrontation with Washington.
India’s stakes in Iran are high. It is a major supplier of oil and natural gas to India. Iran has emerged as India’s gateway to Afghanistan and Central Asia and beyond to Europe. And above all, it’s our neighbour’s neighbour to the west.
Iran’s geopolitical location allows it to influence the developments in the Subcontinent, Central Asia, Persian Gulf and the Middle East. Its confrontation with the US could profoundly affect the stability of all these regions and India’s wide-ranging interests there.
Until now, India has managed to keep its engagement with the United States and Iran separate.
Yet the questions of the India-Pakistan-Iran pipeline, Delhi’s limited defence exchanges with Tehran, and India’s attitude towards Iran’s nuclear programme have already become issues of concern to the United States.
They could get a lot worse in the coming days and utterly complicate India’s balancing act between the United States and Iran.
The outgoing President Mohammad Khatami—who quoted from western philosophers, talked of dialogue among civilisations, and tried to steer his nation towards a new path—had created a seeming basis for reconciliation between Iran and the West.
Khatami’s moderate foreign policy also opened the door for a wider acceptance of Iran in the non-Western world as well as among its Arab neighbours. The domestic basis of that policy appears to have collapsed in these elections.
If Ahmadinejad, who promises to restore the spirit of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, returns Iran to a radical foreign policy, there will be trouble all around.
For those in the Bush Administration who advocate regime change in Tehran, the triumph of the revolutionary ardour in these elections will be further proof that Iran, in its present form, has no redemption.
Parts of the US establishment and most European governments have argued against Bush Administration’s plans to confront Iran.
They had insisted that a “constructive engagement” will encourage Iran to give up the pursuit of nuclear weapons, end opposition to the Middle East peace process, and dissociate itself from the radical Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Hamas in Palestine.
Unless Ahmadinejad begins to downplay his nuclear rhetoric and suggestions of a confrontationist foreign policy, western arguments for a “constructive engagement” with Iran will have little credibility in Washington.
Prejudging Ahmadinejad, who is serving as the
mayor of Tehran, would be wrong. At 48, he is relatively young and capable of political adaptation.
The well-known Iranian trait of pragmatism, the gigantic economic challenges at home and the strategic consequences of confronting America could well induce Ahmadinejad to accept moderate policies once he takes charge in August.
As it has happened elsewhere and often, conservative political tendencies are better placed to handle difficult negotiations on national security issues.
Also, his election means that with no challenge to the supreme authority of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the top gun of Iranian clerical rule, the dual lines of authority in Iran have been removed.
A hard-ball negotiation between the “ultra-conservatives” Tehran and the “neo-conservatives” in Washington need not be as outlandish a prospect as it seems.
In any event, before making a definitive assessment of the new realities in Iran, Delhi must initiate an early diplomatic and political contact with the new leadership in Tehran.
At this point a question: what has motivated the Iranian system to steer away from dual leadership and toward single leadership? A multiplicity of factors pertaining to both internal and external conditions can be mentioned, without necessarily putting them in a hierarchy of importance: the systemic tightness caused by the US military intervention in Iran's vicinity, causing a national security panic of sorts favoring policy centralization; the growing ideological cleavage within the state between the different branches controlled by different factions; the motivation crisis of the Islamic regime caused by the perceived excesses of Khatami-led liberalization; and the historic tendency of the regime's leadership toward monopoly of power at the top.
It seems US military intervention was not just in Iran’s vicinity, the US looks to have in fact bombed Iran. #msg-6715484
This nostalgic, ideological restorationist presidency can, if unchecked, translate into a back-to-the-past "exporting the revolution" foreign approach abhorred and even dreaded by Iran's conservative Muslim neighbors, particularly in the Persian Gulf. Thus, the charted, new slogans of the government in Tehran will possibly alienate Saudi Arabia and their carefully cultivated confidence-building bridge will be somewhat broken.
Bush most probably has already used the ethnic divisions in the region to promote his agenda as seen in the following examples.
On April 15, a letter, which was said to be written by Iran'sformer vice president Mohammad Ali Abtahi to promote a coercive migration of Arabs in the southwestern province of Khuzestan,touched off riots in the provincial capital of Ahvaz.
Iran disclaimed the letter and reined in the unrest, claiming "some foreign agents" were behind the incident. #msg-6489463
It is entirely possible the United States, an ally of the UAE, is the hidden force behind the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council (PGCC) request that the European Union mediate the issue of the disputed islands between Iran and the UAE in an attempt to create an unhealthy political climate. The involvement of the EU has the potential to ignite an international crisis and divide the Arabs. This looks like the United States is attempting to escalate the territorial dispute as a means to diminish Iran. #msg-3136614
-Am
The ayatollah's new reign By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
Jun 28, 2005
Tehran's populist mayor, Mahmud Ahmadinejad, became Iran's new president by upstaging his rivals through a shrewd sleeper campaign that exploited the limelight being away from him, yet the real winner of this tumultuous contest was Iran's spiritual leader, Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei.
After eight years of a fractious dual leadership, with outgoing President Mohammad Khatami's two liberalist administrations challenging the fundamentalist regime at nearly every turn, Iran will now experience a unified leadership with only one man at the top navigating the ship of state, at least for the next four years, until the next round of presidential elections in 2009.
The new president, 49-year-old son of a blacksmith turned university professor turned provincial governor before becoming Tehran's mayor, is by all indications a Khamenei loyalist who will not recycle any of the fissures and tensions of his predecessor, who more often than not was on the defensive for his staunch defense of individual liberties and liberal reforms. Instead, Ahmadinejad will faithfully serve the commands from above dictated by Supreme Leader Khamenei, both in the domestic - and especially - in the foreign realms. In defeating his competitor, former president Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Ahmadinejad has effectively forestalled the possibility that the era of dual leadership would continue after Khatami.
This was, of course, not what most people expected, including Rafsanjani and his top aids, who on the eve of the run-off election last Friday complained bitterly about the interference of military personnel in the electoral process, forbidden by the Islamic constitution. A letter sent to the Interior Ministry by Rafsanjani's chief of campaign singled out several top-ranking officers, including a few who are representatives of the leader. It is absolutely inconceivable that those officers would intervene without a prior green light from the Supreme Leader, and their input in favor of Ahmadinejad was most likely a significant contributing factor in the election's outcome.
At this point a question: what has motivated the Iranian system to steer away from dual leadership and toward single leadership? A multiplicity of factors pertaining to both internal and external conditions can be mentioned, without necessarily putting them in a hierarchy of importance: the systemic tightness caused by the US military intervention in Iran's vicinity, causing a national security panic of sorts favoring policy centralization; the growing ideological cleavage within the state between the different branches controlled by different factions; the motivation crisis of the Islamic regime caused by the perceived excesses of Khatami-led liberalization; and the historic tendency of the regime's leadership toward monopoly of power at the top.
Needless to say, the evaporation of dual leadership is not necessarily tantamount to the end of political factionalism, as seen by the votes cast for reformers in the first round of the presidential election in which seven people participated, and the previous pattern of rule by consensus, proven so effective in maintaining a semblance of political unity, will likely continue, albeit with certain modifications.
A case in point, the moderate faction led by Rafsanjani, present in both the parliament and the quasi-parliamentary Expediency Council, has tremendous influence, particularly in the realm of foreign affairs, and it is highly unlikely that this influence will diminish significantly in the near future. However, this does not imply the absence of some important foreign policy shifts, and even reorientations, during the tenure of Ahmadinejad, such as with respect to the country's nuclear program, in light of the president-elect's stiff criticisms of Iran's nuclear negotiation team and his adamant position that Iran is entitled to possess nuclear fuel and must, therefore, rescind its freeze on low-grade uranium enrichment.
Also, Ahmadinejad has repeatedly stated his penchant to "establish an Islamic world order", rekindling the Islamic republic's initial sound and fury of a permanent revolution extending well beyond the country's borders. This nostalgic, ideological restorationist presidency can, if unchecked, translate into a back-to-the-past "exporting the revolution" foreign approach abhorred and even dreaded by Iran's conservative Muslim neighbors, particularly in the Persian Gulf. Thus, the charted, new slogans of the government in Tehran will possibly alienate Saudi Arabia and their carefully cultivated confidence-building bridge will be somewhat broken.
In historical retrospective, President George W Bush's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may be regarded as the most important contributing factor to the demise of the reformist movement in Iran, just as this author had predicted months before the war began, in a letter published in the New York Times, dated September 3, 2002, that read: The viability of President Mohammad Khatami's reform efforts depends on his ability to simultaneously pursue economic liberalization and political institutional reform. Mr Khatami's recent attempt to weaken the clergy-dominated Guardians Council and to strengthen the presidency represents critical turning points in the country's post-revolutionary political process. Reforms of this nature contribute to the regime's longevity by enhancing the present system of checks and balances. Mr Khatami's reform agenda can be set back by a United States war on Iraq, which is likely to create a national emergency inside Iran. A peaceful environment is an essential condition for deliberative democracy, especially in the turbulent Middle East. Unfortunately, the White House has been blind to both the negative, long-term repercussions of the war in Iraq and, more so, the utility of rule of democracy for the "return to authenticity" of the Muslim fundamentalists seeking the removal of US power from Muslim territories. The presidency of Ahmadinejad may then turn out to be quite turbulent in terms of Iran-US relations, barring unforeseen developments, given his position that Iran is not interested in improving relations with Washington. A case of self-fulfilling prophecy, Washington hardliners may now point at Iran's return to the militancy of the 1980s as a justification to steer the second Bush administration away from the multilateral track noticeable in recent months and toward a more bellicose approach vis-a-vis Tehran's ruling fundamentalists, especially if the Iran-European Union nuclear talks, already suffering, are either terminated or shrunk considerably as a result of Tehran's more rigid and less flexible new approach.
On the other hand, on the domestic front we can expect a significant erosion of some of the civil society gains of the Khatami era, coinciding with a more disciplined economic policy and planning aimed at addressing the ills of Iran's high-unemployment economy. Ahmadinejad is a champion of the working classes and the "disinherited of the earth" who have sacrificed so much in the past, particularly in the eight-year war against Iraq in the 1980s, but it is far from certain that he can actually deliver on some of his economic promises, especially if there is capital flight due to the greater capital risks stemming from foreign threats raised in reaction to Iran's tough new approach. In that case, the Iranian youth's hope and expectations for employment opportunities may be frustrated and contribute to further erosion of legitimacy.
For the moment, however, economic reform tops the agenda of Ahmadinejad, who has promised to fight corruption, install a new generation of managers, create economic justice and redistribute wealth, perhaps through a new tax policy, and create jobs. For the latter, he will need business confidence, which, in turn, cannot be forthcoming if Ahmadinejad plays Robin Hood too much, and if his initiatives end up expanding the scope of the state, when in fact what is needed is a substantive shrinking of the government, by and through a more meaningful privatization policy.
Backed by the country's petty bourgeois merchants centered in the bazaars, Ahmadinejad may well succumb to his illusions and commence, following blessing from above, a type of economic Bonapartism we call economic populism. But the very nature of Iranian capitalism militates against it, which is why we should not vest too much hope that Ahmadinejad will be any more successful in implementing his reform agenda than his predecessor.
On a broader level, the resurgence of Islamic populism associated with the meteoric success of Ahmadinejad is as much a solution to the systemic problems of the Islamic state as a reflection of those problems. Caught in the horns of a dilemma are the paradoxical movements away from and, as in a U-turn, back to the revolution's original idealism associated with its late founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Instead of post-Khomeinism, we are now witnessing a resurgent Khomeinism caused, ironically enough, by the evolution of the political system toward post-Khomeinism, this being a feature of Iran's permanent populism, defying the usual understanding of populism as a transitional phenomenon.
This author once expounded on this rather unique and complex political dialectic in a lengthy dissertation on state and populism in Iran and the Middle East, arguing that the attribution of transitional to the Islamist movement was misplaced. The 2005 presidential election in Iran is a vivid reminder of the lingering ethos of Islamic revolution long considered dead by so many simplistic experts. Revolution is dead, long live the revolution, or so say the ayatollah's "mass of maneuver" who cast their votes in ballots as "so many bullets" aimed at "the enemies", to paraphrase a key ayatollah who backed Ahmadinejad's bid for presidency, contrary to most other high-ranking ayatollahs who supported Rafsanjani. Clearly, the spirit of Islamic revolution lives on.
Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the author of After Khomeini: New Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview Press) and "Iran's Foreign Policy Since 9/11", Brown's Journal of World Affairs, co-authored with former deputy foreign minister Abbas Maleki, No 2, 2003. He teaches political science at Tehran University.
Iran's president-elect declares worldwide Islamic revolution, more islamic terrorism to come
Jul 1, 2005
Iran's president-elect has proclaimed an Islamic revolution of global proportions. Mahmood Ahmadinejad said his election coincided with what he termed a new Islamic revolution.
"The wave of the Islamic revolution will soon reach the entire world," Ahmadinejad said. "In one night, the martyrs strode down a path of 100 years."
Ahmadinejad, who did not elaborate, was speaking to the families of those killed in a 1981 attack at the headquarters of the Islamic Republic Party.
The Tehran mayor has served as a senior commander in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, responsible for the nation's missile and nuclear weapons programs, and has been identified as a suspect in the killing of Iranian dissidents in Europe in the late 1980s. The 49-year-old Ahmadinejad, who participated in the takeover of the U.S. embassy in Teheran, in 1979, was regarded as the most anti-Western of the presidential candidates.
On June 24, he defeated Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president who headed the Expediency Council, the mullah regime's watchdog.
"Thanks to the blood of the martyrs, a new Islamic revolution has arisen and the Islamic revolution of 1384 [the current Iranian year] will, if God wills, cut off the roots of injustice in the world," Ahmadinejad was quoted by the official Iranian news agency as saying. "The era of oppression, hegemonic regimes, tyranny and injustice has reached its end."
The speech marked the first time since the late 1980s that an Iranian president vowed to export Islamic insurgency throughout the world.
Allies of Ahmadinejad said the president-elect, who takes office in August, would seek to revive the principles of the Islamic revolution in 1978. They said Ahmadinejad would also seek to impose Islamic behavior in public, including strict enforcement of a dress code.
"Islamic and revolutionary culture have been neglected in the past years," Iranian parliamentarian Mohammad Taqi Rahbar said.
Iran has been cited as the leading financier of groups that appear on the U.S. State Department list of terrorist organizations. Iran's leading clients have been arab terrorists of Hizbullah in Lebanon and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, both sponsored by Tehran, as well as Hamas and the Syrian-aligned Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command.
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