by Hooman Majd
But no, it’s not Zahra’s skimpy dress or the allure of her bare head he wants to embarrass Mousavi with. It is her college degree, or, as Ahmadinejad claims, her lack of one, despite her being a college professor. Waving the file, Ahmadinejad coyly says, “Shall I tell? Shall I tell?” like a high school student teasing a classmate. He did tell, of course. Whatever happened to his equating a diploma with a “torn piece of paper”? Since the impeachment of his interior minister for lying about his, we all thought Ahmadinejad viewed college degrees as an unnecessary distraction, but I guess he’s trying to point out the corrupt ways of the elite, not necessarily their lack of qualifications.
Mousavi’s anger shows; but he brushes aside the accusation (which no one really believes) and berates the president for his foreign policy—his adventurism, as he calls it—and his failure to deliver much of anything to the Iranian people. The oil wealth never did quite make it to the dinner table of ordinary Iranians, as Ahmadinejad had promised four years ago, but he did provide some services to the poor and working classes during his first term, which has ensured at least some measure of support from them. Ahmadinejad counters, mostly by leveling more accusations against Mousavi’s supporters, particularly the Rafsanjani family, who he claims is bankrolling his opponent’s campaign. Corruption is a favorite topic among working-class Iranians, who have seen little improvement in their lives as the Tehran elite grow richer and richer. Perhaps Ahmadinejad’s vicious attacks are working. It’s hard to say, but the audience seems divided by the end of the broadcast. There has been no real knockout blow, both men (and their supporters) claim to have come out on top, and little will be remembered of the debate except for the president’s meticulous file-keeping on all enemies, real or perceived, and their spouses.
6:00 p.m., June 9, 2009: Ministry of the Interior, Tehran. By now a leak from the ministry in charge of the elections has made the rounds of Tehran, creating a buzz and some concern in the campaign headquarters of Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi. Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah-Yazdi, the most radically hard-line of the hard-line clerics in the holy city of Qom, and Ahmadinejad’s mentor and spiritual adviser, is said to have issued, in an open letter addressed to ministry officials in charge of the vote and leaked by one or more of them, a fatwa allowing the manipulation of the election results in favor of the candidate truest to the principles of Islam. Although Mesbah-Yazdi is not mentioned by name, information provided by ministry officials implicates only him, and although he is not a Marja-e-taghlid, or Grand Ayatollah, and therefore technically not able to issue a fatwa (which can have the force of law), his words have a chilling effect on all who read them. “For you,” his letter states in reference to ensuring that a true Muslim wins, “as administrators of the election, everything is permitted.”
8:20 p.m., June 8, 2009: IRTV 3 Television Studios, Tehran. The final debate of the presidential campaign is about to begin. Mohsen Rezai, a former commander of the Revolutionary Guards and Ahmadinejad’s only conservative rival, walks past the president’s stack of files. The top one has the name of Rezai’s son on it, the son who a few years earlier had made his way to the United States and decided to stay, requesting political asylum. He changed his mind quickly though, and returned to Iran after a few months. The affair was silenced, and Rezai’s son suffered no consequences of his betrayal and disloyalty. The political elite take good care of each other in the Islamic Republic, particularly the Revolutionary Guard elite. But Ahmadinejad, who had already shown a willingness to sling mud in his debate with Mousavi, seems like he’s going to do the same with Rezai, a Sepah veteran. The Sepah-e-Pasdaran, the Revolutionary Guards, are his main backers, after all, and he would be nowhere without their support. Rezai glares at Ahmadinejad. “You bring up my son, one mention, and I’ll bring up your entire family,” he says, according to a witness present in the studio. He uses the Farsi toh rather than the more respectful shoma, similar to the difference between tu and vous in French. “You think you’re the only one with files?” Rezai continues, before taking his seat. Rezai, of course, has plenty of files. You don’t get to be commander of the Guards, for eight years no less, unless you know a lot about your enemies and your friends. Ahmadinejad, needless to say, does not raise the issue of Rezai’s son and why he did not pay a price for his defection. Perhaps this exchange didn’t happen, perhaps the witness is exaggerating, or making it all up. But it is more than likely to have.
6:00 p.m., June 13, 2009: North Tehran. Ayatollah Rafsanjani is huddled in a room with his family and some of his aides. Rafsanjani, known as the second most powerful man in Iran, is calm. The Supreme Leader has already congratulated President Ahmadinejad on his re-election, essentially validating the results of the election before the Guardian Council, the body that certifies elections, does. More than a week ago, Rafsanjani had written to Ayatollah Khamenei, the Rahbar, asking him to ensure that the election would be a fair one. Some viewed that letter as a threat—that Rafsanjani was suggesting that if there were to be fraud, he would hold Khamenei responsible. And Rafsanjani arguably had the power to do something about it, but Khamenei must not have cared. No one in the opposition, not even some supporters of Khamenei, believes the results of the election exactly as announced. So now, while many on both the left and the right are confused and unsure of what their next steps should be, it is up to Rafsanjani, easily the most powerful politician opposed to Ahmadinejad, to make his move. He knows it, but he also knows how dangerous it can be in the waters he’s about to venture into. Not one to make mistakes, Rafsanjani is cool and collected as he considers the best way of thwarting the Ahmadinejad putsch, for that’s what he believes it to be. Mousavi’s headquarters have been raided, his communications network shut down, and Iran is in a state of shock. Ayatollah Khamenei, the man Rafsanjani shoe-horned into the job of Supreme Leader twenty years ago, was once his friend and ally, but he has now made it clear that he is backing Ahmadinejad all the way. It is still unclear which way the political pendulum will swing, and Rafsanjani, sometimes known as the Kuseh, or the “Shark,” won’t take any chances. It’s finally decided. He will quietly make a trip to two cities, Qom and Mashhad, visiting clerics and members of the Assembly of Experts, of which he is the chairman, to see which way the wind is blowing. Nothing is to be disclosed publicly, not his itinerary, not who he is meeting with, not even that he’s left Tehran. And that’s the way it will be, except for the Tehran rumor mill, which continues to grind away with reports of Rafsanjani’s every move, all unconfirmed, but all believed. Everything is true.
8:00 p.m., June 15, 2009: North Tehran, Iran, and Brooklyn, New York. I am on the phone with Ali Khatami, former president Khatami’s brother and longtime chief of staff. “My sense,” I say, “is that people are really just protesting the vote, not looking to start another revolution.”
“Exactly!” he says. “That’s exactly what is happening, and nothing more. It just doesn’t make sense to most people, and they are frustrated and angry. We have to support them, as they have supported us.”
“You know, some are calling it a revolution here and in the West in general,” I say.
“No!” says Khatami. “All we’re asking for is what is legal in Iran, for the law to prevail. Karroubi, you know, can be hot-headed, he’s a Lor after all, but we’re all just asking for the law to be applied to the elections.”
“What’s going to happen?” I ask, on a day when Iran has seen the largest demonstration in its history as an Islamic Republic.
“I don’t know,” Khatami replies, “but we can only hope that everyone comes to their senses.”
1:45 p.m., June 19, 2009: Tehran University Campus, Friday Prayers, Tehran. The Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, delivers his sermon. The entire world has been waiting for this moment, waiting to hear Iran’s most powerful man weigh in on the biggest internal crisis to face the nation in thirty years. Khamenei tells the audience how humbled he is by the turnout in the election a
week ago—almost 85 percent and forty million souls—and how the people are still committed to the Islamic Revolution. “This election put religious democracy on display for the whole world to witness,” he says, and “all ill-wishers of the Islamic establishment saw for themselves the meaning of religious democracy.” It is not what voters opposed to the government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad want to hear, not by a long shot. Religious democracy? “This is an alternative path in the face of dictatorships and arrogant regimes on the one side and democracies devoid of spirituality and religion on the other,” the Ayatollah continues. “This is religious democracy. This is what brings the hearts of people together and draws them to the scene.”
What has been “drawing” people “to the scene” in the last week—the scene being the streets of the capital and other cities—has been allegations of fraud, but he is right that the notion of democracy brought people to the ballot box. It is becoming clear, though, that the Supreme Leader means to draw a line in the sand. While he praises all the candidates who ran for president, and dismisses notions that any of them are “outside” the system or anti-revolutionary, he also admits that President Ahmadinejad’s ideas “are closer to mine” than anyone else’s. Never before has a Supreme Leader so openly played favorites among the many powerful politicians vying for power under his leadership. It is the end of the game as far as many Iranians are concerned: as long as Ali Khamenei is alive or occupies the post of Supreme Leader, Ahmadinejad and perhaps even his chosen successor will enjoy the protection of the valih-e-faqih. That, it seems, is this Ayatollah’s version of an Islamic democracy.
As for the opposition, Khamenei warns them in no uncertain terms. “Post-election rivalry on the streets is not the right way to go,” he says. “It only challenges the election. I want all sides to put an end to this. If they do not stop such actions, then they will be responsible for the repercussions of such incidents.” “Repercussions,” all Iranians know, is the code word for state-sanctioned violence. “It is also wrong to assume that street riots can be used as leverage to pressure the establishment and to force officials to listen to them for what they believe is in the interest of the country,” the Ayatollah continues, trying to put an end to any ideas Iranians might have that their protests will have an effect. “Giving in to illegal demands under pressure is in itself the beginning of dictatorship. This is a miscalculation and the consequences will be directed at those who orchestrated them.” The Ayatollah has spoken, and his word is law.
1:50 p.m., July 17, 2009: Tehran University Campus, Friday Prayers. Ayatollah Rafsanjani is the prayer leader today, a little over a month after the election, a month during which he has been remarkably quiet, at least publicly. Everyone in Tehran knows that he believes the election results to be fraudulent, that he probably spent the last four weeks trying either to unseat the Supreme Leader or to gather enough support among fellow critics to persuade him to change his mind about Ahmadinejad and the election of 2009. The crowd is overflowing; it looks to be one of the biggest crowds to attend Tehran Friday prayers in years, and many attendees will have to listen and pray on the grounds or on adjoining thoroughfares like Enghelab Street. The last time Rafsanjani delivered the Friday sermon in that huge ceilinged but otherwise open-air hall was on May 22, three weeks before the election. Rafsanjani, leaning on a Kalashnikov rifle, had exhorted the much smaller crowd, and whoever was listening on the radio then, not only to chant “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” but also to participate in the upcoming vote. I was present for that sermon, but none of my many cousins attended. This time, they are all there. For many of the tens of thousands of people in the hall and outside, it is their first time attending a Friday prayer, certainly for many of the women (who are segregated) and the secular Tehranis who on a normal Friday holiday would be engaging in less religiously themed enjoyments. But they are here to hear what Rafsanjani says, for this, they recognize, is a momentous occasion in the history of their republic, and for the notion of democracy in Iran. Friday prayer sermons are supposed to reflect the Supreme Leader’s views. Will Rafsanjani cave and express his support for Khamenei, or will he challenge him in a way no one has ever done in the Islamic Republic’s thirty-year history? Millions of Iranians are waiting to see, perhaps oblivious to the irony that their hopes for a more democratic Iran are resting with one of the pillars of the regime many have grown to hate—a two-time president, an Ayatollah, and a person in whose interest it has always been to preserve the regime at all costs.
Rafsanjani doesn’t disappoint. Ignoring any directives from the Supreme Leader, he challenges his own regime to make the changes needed to avert what he calls a “crisis.” “The legitimacy of the country comes from its people’s consent,” he says, quoting the founder of the republic, Ayatollah Khomeini. “When we were writing the new constitution,” says Rafsanjani, referring to the founding of the Islamic Republic, “we asked the Imam [Khomeini] for advice. He put a lot of emphasis on the role of the people. He also knew that people’s vote was the most important thing inside our country—everything depended upon the people’s vote. People should directly elect the president, the Parliament, the local council—it was all about the vote of the people. This is a theocracy—a theocratic republic.” The audience is again chanting, drowning out his words. “Be patient,” Rafsanjani exhorts. “Be calm,” he pleads. “If the government is not Islamic, then we are heading nowhere. If it is not a republic, then it doesn’t amount to anything.” There is more chanting and the atmosphere is getting more tense by the moment. The supporters of the regime, hoping that Rafsanjani might use the nation’s most influential pulpit to throw his full support behind the Supreme Leader, are unhappy. “We need to have an open society in which people can say what they want to say,” Rafsanjani continues, ignoring them. “We should not imprison people—let them rejoin their families.” The pro-government crowd inside the hall tries to shout him down, with chants of “Death to America!” and “Death to Israel!” but supporters and pro-reform Iranians counter with their own idea of to whom death should pay a visit. “Death to Russia!” they shout, a reference to the fact that President Dmitry Medvedev was the first foreign leader to congratulate Ahmadinejad on his re-election, and that Ahmadinejad’s first foreign jaunt was to Russia, only days after the disputed election. There are clashes outside, between Basij, police, and a pro-Ahmadinejad crowd on one side, and anti-government demonstrators on the other. A number of people are arrested, including the sons of that other pillar of the establishment, Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani. It is an electrifying day for Iranians, who have not seen this kind of debate, disagreement, and public questioning of the direction their country is headed in years or, in fact, ever. Everything is not true.
ENTR’ACTE
While the battle over the presidency and the future of Iran continues, we consider the political landscape.
The Supreme Leader. The Guardian Council. The Assembly of Experts. The Expediency Discernment Council. Corps of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution (The Revolutionary Guards, Sepah-e-Pasdaran), Islamic Consultative Assembly (Majles, or Parliament). The president, any president, important as he is, would not be president if the Guardian Council hadn’t approved his candidacy ahead of time; he would not be able to take office if the council and the Supreme Leader had not certified his election; and he would not be able to form a cabinet without the confirmation process of the Parliament. And then, if he is able to get legislation passed by the Parliament, he has to await the Guardians’ approval, and if it is not forthcoming, await the Expediency Council’s arbitration of any dispute. And then there’s the Supreme Leader’s opinion.
“Everything is true; nothing is permitted.” That statement can often be not just the Supreme Leader’s opinion but his edict as well. It is the obverse of a cryptic phrase attributed to Hassan’e Sabah, the eleventh-century Persian leader of the Nizari Ismaili Shia sect (better known as the “Assassins”), which he uttered on his deathbed at his fortress at
Alamut and which the American beat generation, most notably William S. Burroughs, widely propagated in its original form: nothing is true; everything is permitted. Which can also be the Supreme Leader’s edict, when it suits his purposes.
One can be forgiven for thinking the government, and even the military of Iran, sound rather Orwellian. And it’s not only as in George Orwell’s 1984; how about the commandment in his Animal Farm that “all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others”? Muslims are more equal than non-Muslims in the Islamic Republic, aren’t they? Shia Muslims are even more equal than Sunnis, clerics more equal than laymen, and Ayatollahs the most equal of all. Or are they? Neither the Orwellian nomenclature (or nature) of the governmental bodies, nor the Animal Farm–like hierarchy of its citizens tells the whole story of Iranian politics, as tempting as it is for some to reduce Iran to a caricature of a Stalinist dictatorship. While the names given to the governmental bodies sound Orwellian, their functions, at least as originally intended, were meant to ensure a form of mardomsalari, or democracy. “Supreme” is a word added on in English; in Farsi the title of the Leader is just that, Rahbar. He is the jurisprudent at the head of the velayat-e-faqih, the “guardianship of the jurisprudent,” or as some prefer in the practical case of Iran, “rule of the jurisprudent.” But if the Supreme Leader were a Stalin-like figure who tolerates no dissention or debate, no breaks from his orders or philosophies, then the various Orwellian bodies of government would be stacked only with his most loyal lieutenants. The Guardian Council is arguably the one body (other than the Guards, who are loyalists by definition and are by law to remain neutral in political matters) that is effectively appointed directly by the Supreme Leader, and it has always reflected his conservative bias. A twelve-member body—six Islamic jurists appointed by the Supreme Leader and six jurists elected by Parliament from a list of names provided by the chief of the Judiciary, who is in turn selected by the Supreme Leader—its primary function is to interpret the constitution and to approve or veto bills passed by Parliament, judging both the Islamic and constitutional suitability of any law. Its other function, what it is best known for in the West, is approving or disqualifying candidates for public office, from the presidential level on down, and certifying all election results. Everything is true.