Power Struggle at the Top
The Assembly of Experts must be activated and must devote its full attention to its assigned duties, says newly elected chairman of the Assembly of Experts, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.
The significance of this proclamation goes far beyond similar statements that leading politicians issue when they assume a new office. The Assembly of Experts, which consists of 86 select, influential clerics, is given the responsibility of electing and, if necessary, deposing the revolutionary leader as well as monitoring his activities and decisions.
However, the Assembly of Experts has not made use of this competence since the election of revolutionary leader Ali Khamenei eighteen years ago.
Irreconcilable differences
That Khamanei was able to step up as the successor to Ayatollah Khomeini at that time was not least of all Rafsanjani's doing. Rafsanjani exerted his influence and succeeded in persuading the Shiite clerics to accept Khamenei, even if reluctantly, as their religious leader. Rafsanjani himself assumed the office of President of Iran after Khamenei's election.
Rafsanjani's proclamation that he will activate the Assembly of Experts does not mean, however, that he will go so far as to try to depose the revolutionary leader, despite the irreconcilable differences that have meanwhile emerged between him and Khamenei. But he would most likely make sure that Khamenei's official functions are painstakingly scrutinized. And these functions are quite extensive.
The important organs of the Islamic theocratic state, for instance, are not controlled by the parliament. Instead they are directly under the control of the revolutionary leader. This includes, to mention only the most important, the military, the revolutionary guards, the secret service, and the judiciary.
The intervention of the Assembly of Experts in these affairs would greatly reduce the absolute power of the revolutionary leader. Rafsanjani has even called for the press to report more on the activities of the Assembly of Experts in the future.
The demand is also clearly a provocation. Two days earlier Khamenei had berated the commentators who had linked the election of the chairman of the Assembly of Experts with fractional and power struggles in the Islamic theocracy, calling them "resentful and ill-mannered journalists," who, in league with foreign secret service agents, wish to stir up trouble.
The Sword of Damocles over Khamenei's head
With the election of Rafsanjani, the Assembly of Experts could become a constant threat hanging over the head of the revolutionary leader, much like Sword of Damocles, forcing him to make compromises.
Perhaps only the revolutionary leader could deny that since the birth of the Islamic republic the power struggle in Iran has never been more ferocious than now.
This power struggle, which at the latest since Ahmadinejad took over as President of Iran has grown increasingly more vehement and is being fought quite openly, has also, as commentators have correctly reported, descended on the Assembly of Experts, which hitherto has been presented as a showcase for the unity of the Shiite clergy.
Even a few years ago it would have been inconceivable for the ultraconservative Ahmad Jannati to run against conservative pragmatist Rafsanjani. The radical Islamists gathered around Ahmadinejad, who wanted to take over the Assembly of Experts with their candidate Jannati, have not neglected any chance to discredit Rafsanjani.
Rafsanjani's memoir's banned
Even the seventh volume of his memoirs, in which Rafsanjani writes that Khomeini had approved the proposal to omit the rallying cry "Death to America," was banned and withdrawn by the censors a few days after its publication.
However, the radicals have played the highest possible trump with their candidate Jannati, who is no less than the long-standing chairman of the Guardian Council, a council whose approval is required for any law to go into effect and for any candidate to campaign in the parliamentary and presidential elections.
Jannati's defeat is a bitter loss for the radical Islamists, who already had to bear a resounding defeat at the last municipal elections.
Rafsanjani's election has awakened new hope among moderate conservatives as well as reformers. They aim to break the absolute majority of the radical Islamists in next year's upcoming parliamentary elections and to form the majority in Majlis, the Iranian parliament. Since some time now an alliance has seemingly emerged between the two camps.
The reformer Mohammad Khatami, the conservative pragmatist Rafsanjani, and former conservative parliamentary president Mehdi Karrubi, who, however, consistently breaks ranks, appear to have made the necessary agreements.
Political damage limitation
Their first priority is to save what is still left intact from the devastating politics of Ahmadinejad's government, in domestic and in foreign policy.
But can the 73-year-old Rafsanjani take over the reins again, curb the radicals, and push through a moderate course? Admittedly, he won the election to become chairman of the Assembly of Experts with 41 votes, but Jannati received 33 votes.
With this balance of power he will not be able to perform any great escapades. Nevertheless, the election greatly enhances his position.
Rafsanjani is still among the most powerful men in the Shiite state. In addition to being chairman of the Assembly of Experts he is head of the "Council for Discerning the State's Interests," a council that has the last word in conflicts between the parliament and the Guardian Council.
He also used to be one of the most intimate confidants of Ayatollah Khomeini. After the Islamists took power in 1979 he become a member of the Revolutionary Council, a few months later Minister of the Interior, then president of the parliament, and during the war against Iraq (1980-1988) the revolutionary leader's commander in chief of the armed forces.
In 1989 he was elected President of Iran, and in 1993 was reelected for another four years. The man of God, who once for a small fee proclaimed divine messages to believers, now possesses a fortune, estimated at more than one billion dollars.
Pragmatist, reformer, fundamentalist ideologist
Rafsanjani political position is difficult to make out. The crafty tactician is like a fish who slips away under your hand, a pragmatist when it concerns the preservation of his own power and interests, a fundamentalist ideologist when he is fighting his enemies, and a reformer when he sees his own base dwindling.
The people call him the éminence grise. He does not shy from any crime to get what he wants. Numerous murders, according to the prevailing opinion of the people, have been carried out on his behalf.
A Berlin court considered it as proven that he was behind the assassination in 1992 of four Iranian dissidents in the Berlin restaurant Mykonos. He is also considered to be one of the masterminds behind the planning of the so-called chain murders in 1999.
Thus it is not surprising that he is one of the most hated politicians in the country.
Nevertheless, many people are looking at him right now, in comparison to Ahmadinejad, as the lesser of two evils. In any case, what is certain is that the raging power struggle in Iran is closing in on Ahmadinejad and the radical Islamists. They will not be able to hold on to power much longer.
Unless, of course, they venture a military coup or succeed in challenging the USA, Israel, and the EU with provocations and the generation of new crises to the point that these countries increase sanctions against Iran or even launch a military campaign.
Then under the pretext of defending Islam and the country all differences will be swept under the rug and any opposition will be silenced as treason to Iran.
Bahman Nirumand
© Qantara.de 2007
Translated from the German by Nancy Joyce
Qantara.de
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