The Ayatollahs' Democracy: An Iranian Challenge
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Undemocratic? You bet. Mohsen Rezai, the losing conservative challenger to President Ahmadinejad in the 2009 election, has suggested that future elections be handled by an independent “National Election Commission” to ensure fairness, from the vote count itself (now handled by the Interior Ministry, whose head is appointed by the president and therefore is likely to be biased) to the certification of the results. Whether that will come to pass or not, the likelihood of some change in the electoral process is high, given the dissatisfaction with the way the 2009 election was handled, on the part of both reformers and conservatives. Some reformists in Iran have suggested that the Guardian Council be eliminated altogether, and that this unlikely scenario is even on the table, discussed openly in a place where nothing is permitted, is perhaps of some solace to those who want democratic change in the Islamic system.
The Assembly of Experts, perhaps the most Orwellian sounding of the various governmental bodies, is actually, in a typically Persian way, simultaneously the most and least important branch of the government. The assembly, composed of eighty-six Islamic scholars elected to eight-year terms, meets quietly twice a year and is charged with monitoring the Supreme Leader’s performance. The clerics in the assembly, all elected by direct vote of the people, pick the Supreme Leader and can remove or impeach him, but since the Islamic Revolution of 1979 they have had to consider a new Leader only once, after Khomeini’s death, and perhaps consider action once, in the aftermath of the 2009 election. Otherwise, they are essentially irrelevant to the day-to-day functioning of the republic, and no one pays any attention to their twice-yearly meetings. The chairman of the assembly, Ayatollah Rafsanjani, has many allies in that body, including Hassan Rowhani, the former nuclear negotiator under President Khatami and someone close to the reformers as well as the pragmatic conservatives, but of course there are hard-line clerics in the body, too, who are resistant to any change in the system of leadership (some of whom, like Ayatollah Mesbah-Yazdi, would very much like to become the Supreme in that leadership one day).
After Khomeini’s death, a proposal to replace the Supreme Leader with a council of three (or more) jurists was floated and rejected, but Ayatollah Rafsanjani has revived this as a possibility. In the aftermath of the 2009 election, many analysts and anti-regime Iranians pointed to the shadowy Mojtaba Khamenei, the Supreme Leader’s son, as the man responsible for ensuring an Ahmadinejad win, partly because of his own ambitions to succeed his father in the post of Rahbar. If true, at least the ambition part, he is probably in for a major disappointment. For Khamenei Jr. has neither the religious credentials (his father didn’t either, but at least he had the respect of his fellow clergy) nor the political acumen to maneuver around the likes of Rafsanjani, or, more important, conservative and hard-line clerics who want the job for themselves.
In order to ensure some form of democratic control over the office of the Supreme Leader, reformist politicians have indicated that they wish to amend the Iranian constitution to allow non-clerics into the assembly, and to remove the Guardian Council’s veto on who can run for election to the body. Again, it is unlikely that their efforts will be successful, certainly not while they are the minority in Parliament and excluded from the executive branch, but in what they call the necessary “evolution” of the Islamic Republic, they view the acceptance of their concepts of Islamic democracy as inevitable for the long-term survival of the Islamic system. If they can get some of their top politicians out of Evin prison before the next round of parliamentary elections, and if the Guardian Council allows more reformists to run (if only to avoid incurring the wrath of the people yet again), perhaps they will be in a position to convince their conservative colleagues of the same. If past civil rights movements in other countries are any indication, Iran’s own movement may have far-reaching implications for a new kind of democracy established without the wholesale removal of a political system (which some insist is the only real reform possible in Iran).
The Expediency Council, not very Orwellian but beautifully named (who wouldn’t want a council charged with expediency in government?), is an important body that was set up under the revised constitution of 1988. However, it is little understood, even in Iran. Officially it is charged with resolving differences and conflicts between the Guardian Council and the Parliament, although as an advisory body to the Supreme Leader, who appoints its members, it has far greater power, and in fact, the Supreme Leader gave the Expediency Council supervisory authority over the executive branch after the election of President Ahmadinejad in 2005. (Ahmadinejad has chosen to ignore the council with apparent impunity.) The longtime chairman of the council is Ayatollah Rafsanjani, and among its members have been Hassan Rowhani, Ali Larijani, and Mir Hossein Mousavi (who is still a member, believe it or not), all opposed to the hard-liner Ahmadinejad. Ahmadinejad and his allies had hit hard at Rafsanjani after the disputed election because of his initial unambiguous stand on the results and the government crackdown that followed, but the Supreme Leader made very clear the importance of the council and Rafsanjani to the continued stability of the Islamic Republic. In November 2009, after more attacks on Rafsanjani, Khamenei stated that “reports that tarnish the reputation of prominent figures of the establishment are unacceptable, whether these reports are about the president, or the speaker of Parliament, or the head of the Expediency Council.” He even said that accusations against Rafsanjani were part of a foreign plot, a “soft war” on Iran, he called it: “Such actions are in line with the wishes of the enemy because the country’s officials, including the president, the Majles speaker, the Judiciary chief, and the Expediency Council chairman are at the helm of the country, and people should trust them.”
SO THERE are four, not three, branches of government in this Ayatollah’s democracy—five, if you include the Leader himself—and they are often at odds with each other. All throughout the summer Ahmadinejad and his friends had been accusing the reformists of being a “part of the enemy’s soft war” now they were being included in the list of Iranians who were doing the enemy’s bidding. One could be forgiven for wondering if there was no one left in Tehran in late 2009 who wasn’t a part of the enemy’s plot to overthrow the Islamic regime. Ali Larijani weighed in a few days later, criticizing those who criticized Rafsanjani, and at the Tehran Friday prayers the same week, an archconservative ally of Ahmadinejad’s, Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami (no relation to former president Khatami), who ironically was leading the important Eid-ol-Adha (Muslim holiday) prayers for the first time—traditionally the role of Ayatollah Rafsanjani—repeated the Supreme Leader’s admonition by advising his flock to respect the heads of the three branches of government and the chairman of the Expediency Council, Ayatollah Rafsanjani, “per guidelines of the Supreme Leader of Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei.” It must have pained him to say so, but say it he did, even as he emphasized the three, and not four branches of government Khamenei had apparently outlined.
A FEW DAYS earlier, Hassan Taeb, a former commander of the Basij but at that time the deputy for intelligence in the Revolutionary Guards, had accused Rafsanjani’s oldest son, Mehdi, of running a prostitution ring in the 1990s, for the purpose of espionage, and Taeb claimed that only his father’s influence guaranteed his immunity from prosecution. Mehdi Hashemi, as he is known, has been the longtime head of the Tehran Metro (my cousin Mohammad Majd, also former President Khatami’s cousin, is his longtime deputy). In this role, Hashemi runs a multi-billion-dollar project that has built and is expanding Iran’s first subway system, and the Ahmadinejad administration has been trying, unsuccessfully, to have him removed from the post from almost the day the president was first inaugurated.
Taeb and his supporters in the Basij, the Guards, and the Ahmadinejad government were no doubt shocked to hear that they too, by disparaging Rafsanjani, might have been a part of the enemy’s soft war on Iran, a war that they had responded to, up until then, in an aggressively vicious fashion. Everything is true; everything is for
bidden. With prostitutes in tow or not, corrupt or not, Rafsanjani, the chairman of the Expediency Council, and his family would remain untouchable, at least for now, and the Supreme Leader, by his own decree, would have to countenance his dissent, which Rafsanjani, undaunted by Taeb or anyone else, repeated only a few days later. By emphasizing in a speech at a university that the regime needs to respond to the protests, needs to “open the sphere of criticism over shortcomings and weaknesses of the regime,” and needs to recognize the importance of “the irrefutable role of the public in providing legitimacy to the regime,” Rafsanjani showed not only his independence from all branches of the government, however many there are, but also his confidence in the power he wields in his version of the Ayatollahs’ democracy.
THE CLERICS and people in Iran have their differing ideas of what “Islamic democracy” means, or what it should look like, but they almost all agree that the foundations of that democracy were laid down by the revolution of 1979. Perverted perhaps by individuals with unchecked power or sometimes by the very bodies that were intended to ensure a form of democracy, it is not a form of government to write off just yet. Mehdi Karroubi, who like Rafsanjani was jailed on numerous occasions during Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s time, has often said that he did not expect the Islamic republic he helped found to become the autocratic and intolerant government he believes it now to be. Islamic democracy, as he and other clerics have avowed, is possible because there are republican aspects of Islam and Islamic aspects of republicanism, such as respect for and protection of the rights of the people, and the ability of the people to choose their leaders. That’s far too vague to be a description of a political system, and one that melds theology with governance, but perhaps it’s that vagueness—and the anomalous nature of the Ayatollahs’ democracy—that has allowed its survival this long.
ACT TWO:
Nothing Is Permitted
10:00 p.m., September 25, 2009: The Intercontinental Hotel, New York City. President Ahmadinejad and his entourage, in town to attend the UN General Assembly, are in residence. Ahmadinejad, as he does every year he comes to the United States, holds a dinner for Iranians living in this country, and this year is no exception, despite an election widely seen as fraudulent and the massive unrest that ensued, resulting in deaths, detention, forced confessions, and allegations of torture and rape. However, this year the dinner is a more intimate gathering, held in two small adjoining conference rooms on the ground floor of the hotel, which is located on Lexington Avenue, a few blocks away from the UN. There are protesters outside, and those of us attending had to pass through heavy security to get in. Nonetheless, before dinner starts, an elderly gentleman neatly dressed in a gray suit stands up and yells at the top of his voice, “Marg bar Jomhouri-e-Eslami, Marg Bar Khamenei!”—“Death to the Islamic Republic, death to Khamenei!” It seems we can’t get away from death, not even here, not even among Iranians who had perhaps hoped and voted for a less pugnacious administration in Tehran. The room is awkwardly silent as the man is gently escorted away by American security officials under the glare of their Iranian counterparts.
The Iranian foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, a holdover from the first Ahmadinejad administration, stands up to speak. President Ahmadinejad himself is a no-show, owing to an emergency dinner he is having with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, to discuss the latest element in the nuclear crisis: the revelation of a previously undisclosed enrichment site, which was made public this morning. Lucky A-jad! He won’t have to face any tough questions from his carefully screened guests, for he has to leave for Tehran this evening—right after his tête-à-tête with the secretary-general—and the FAA has given his jet a short window of opportunity in which to take off.
During his talk Mottaki makes no mention of the lone protester, who will not, it seems, get his fifteen minutes of fame right here in Andy Warhol’s town, and certainly not in Tehran where his defiance will go unreported. The foreign minister is smiling just as uncomfortably as the rest of us, and even sweating, it appears. “The elections,” he says, “were an affirmation of our democratic process.” I turn to look at Eshagh Al’e Habib, the ambassador and deputy permanent representative to the UN, and an intelligent, mild-mannered diplomat, who is sitting next to me. He also smiles, almost apologetically I think. “Over 13 million people voted for the loser!” exclaims Mottaki, not able to bring himself to mention that loser’s name, Mir Hossein Mousavi. It is almost as if he is afraid to, here in front of Ahmadinejad’s top aides, including the mastermind behind his first legitimate electoral win, and possibly his second questionable one, Mojtaba Hashemi-Samareh. “And some presidents in the Islamic Republic’s history have actually won with less than that,” continues the foreign minister, “with only 11 million votes!” The official tally in 2009 had been 24 million votes for Ahmadinejad and 13 million for Mousavi, while Ahmadinejad in his previous victory had received only 17 million votes. I wonder if Mottaki realizes that in trying to convince what he knows is a tougher crowd than what he would face back home, if only because they live in New York, he is begging the question, so where the fuck did A-jad’s extra few million votes come from?
3:00 p.m., July 29, 2009: Iranian Mission to the United Nations, New York City, Office of Ambassador and Deputy Permanent Representative Eshagh Al’e Habib. Permanent Representative Mohammad Khazaee has been back and forth to Tehran for weeks, and is largely absent from the offices in New York and from the UN building. Al’e Habib and I are sitting in his spacious office suite, sipping tea.
“I’ve asked Counsellor Alavikia to join us, if you don’t mind,” he says. Majid Alavikia, a relative newcomer to this diplomatic outpost of the Islamic Republic, walks into the room, almost on cue, and sits down on the couch next to me.
“I have my opinions,” I say, “but I’m still trying to understand what’s going on in Iran. You know of my relationship with Mr. Khatami…” I am interrupted by Al’e Habib.
“Of course!” he exclaims. “I have the utmost respect for Mr. Khatami and Mir Hossein Mousavi,” he continues, “but you know, when you leave Tehran, you see how much support President Ahmadinejad has.”
“I was in Iran for over a month, right before the elections, and I traveled around the country,” I say, “but I have to differ with you on the level of support the president had in the provinces.” Al’e Habib and Alavikia smile uncomfortably. Neither has been back to Tehran, or anywhere else in Iran, for over a year. These foreign ministry employees must be facing the most difficult period of their careers, I think, especially since they are posted in the United States. Not only is it the one country in the world where antagonism with their government is the highest, but also the U.S. government restricts their movements to a twenty-five-mile radius of Columbus Circle, making them and their families virtual prisoners of New York. “But leaving aside whether there was any fraud in the elections or not,” I continue, “what is happening in Iran with respect to the arrests, the killings, and so on, makes it impossible to not believe that something has gone horribly wrong.”
“The media is being unfair,” says Alavikia. “All they want to report on is what the opposition is saying, and what the protesters are saying.” He pauses for a moment. “Of course, we respect the opposition, the people,” he adds.
“With all due respect,” I say, “you’re not allowing the press to cover anything at all, so they cover what they can.”
“The media has shown its bias,” says Al’e Habib, “all this talk of revolution, of toppling the system…”
“I know, and I disagree with the idea that there’s a revolution brewing in Iran,” I reply, “but throwing journalists in jail doesn’t help your cause. Maziar Bahari, for example.” (Bahari was the Newsweek reporter who spent 118 days in Evin prison.) Al’e Habib nods his head.
“This will all pass,” he says. “Things will settle down once the authorities in Tehran are satisfied. You know, Roger Cohen was here a few days ago, asking for a visa to return to Tehran.
He promised he would be fair in his coverage from now on, but really, I cannot imagine that he’ll be welcome for a while.” Cohen, who writes for the New York Times, had provided eyewitness accounts of the post-election unrest in Iran and had defied the authorities’ prohibition on reporting from the streets until his visa ran out and he was forced to leave the country.