Developments before and after the June 12 presidential election show that Iran is in the midst of a regime crisis. The authoritarian clerical regime has lost its revolutionary legitimacy in the eyes of the people, including those who voted for Ahmadinejad. Any remaining legitimacy Ahmadinejad can lay claim to rests on his image as a leader with a tough stance against perceived foreign threats.
The deadlock that has defined the regime since 1997 is now at an impasse. The post-election mass protests are the result of the failure to keep a lid on the tensions between diverging camps within the ruling elite any longer and it spilling out onto the streets of Tehran by the will of people, the likes of which have not been seen since the 1979 revolution.
The Future of Khamenei
Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and opposition candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi constitute one side of the elite struggle. The other side is the religious leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Hoseyni Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, with his full backing.
It was Khamenei's unconditional support for Ahmadinejad that ironically paved the way for the regime's legitimacy to be questioned. His own reputation was been damaged and he put himself in a vulnerable position. The decision that came later to partially recount the votes was simply too little, too late.
What is going on in Iran, however, does not have the power to change the status quo, for now at least. The regime has already brutally clamped down on the opposition movement and isolated it into severed, leaderless pockets of protest. Essentially, the demonstrations on the streets are about an internal struggle at the top about who will wrestle control over the ruling clerical elite-it is not a direct threat to the Islamic regime itself, again-at least for now. A compromise struck between the influential elites could help overcome the immediate crisis. But for this to happen, both sides have to back down. Failing to receive the expected support from the Assembly of Experts at Qom, Rafsanjani and Mousavi will soften the intensity of the demonstrations. After the protestors get tired and return home, it will be Khamenei and Ahmadinejad's turn to back down. In the longer term, the conservative wing will likely allow some opening up in the social sphere, but this will not mean a more democratic and transparent government. It should not be forgotten that both sides desire a solution to the crisis within the existing system. Today, what's being done in the corridors of the palace is a waltz to save the regime.
Class Difference
Should a new crisis erupt, a stronger public reaction will likely take place and this time it will sweep both sides. Although political leaders who seek fundamental change and the collapse of the current system are absent from the political arena now, time is calling them to the stage.
The central difference between Mousavi and Ahmadinejad rests on disagreement over whether structural reforms, in line with the core principles of Islam, are prerequisites for any acceptable resolution to the bottlenecks in the system. Mousavi thinks that reforms are inescapable; Ahmadinejad claims that Iran's problems can be solved within the existing establishment.
The current conflict taking place between the ruling elite In Iran and the opposition is in essence a class conflict. Mousavi is the voice of the "nevzur", the newly wealthy class that was created during the Rafsanjani presidency. Ahmadinejad, on the other hand, cleverly leveraged his populist credentials as the son of a blacksmith, a man of the people. The son of a tea trader, Mousavi could not hit the same chord among the public. Mehdi Karoubi was wealthy. Rafsanjani had become wealthy. For the masses of poor Iranians, change means more bread, wages and employment. The conflict in Iran should be read as one that is defined in many ways by class.
Reforms led by Rafsanjani's Karguzaran (State Builders) group created a new capitalism and a bourgeoisie class in the country. Those who were abandoned by former Islamist-leftist radicals, like Mousavi, in the 1990s, took refuge in the state for 20 years to protect themselves. The working class and the poor saw the centrist Ahmadinejad as their protector against the pro-privatization and reformist wealthy class.
Cyclical Leaders
Every historical turning point in Iran produced the demand for, and then supplied, a leader appropriate for the prevailing conditions of the day. During the period when Iran was trying to export its revolution, the need was for Ayatollah Khomeini. The destruction caused by the 8 year long Iran-Iraq War necessitated the wide-scale reconstruction of the country. In 1989, Hashemi Rafsanjani came to power as a representative of reformist/liberal policy to meet the demand for this massive initiative. These reformist policies produced a new wealthy class. But the gap between the classes only widened, and the need for finding a third way within the regime grew stronger. Wealthy groups now wanted freedom. In 1997, the moderate and pro-freedom Hatemi became president out of this need. In the 2000s, when the perceived US threat escalated, national security gained primacy. The only candidate for the hawks was Ahmadinejad. The foreign threat may have decreased with the Obama presidency, but has not disappeared.
Foreign Support
It has been reported that 400 million US dollars that was allocated for Iran during the Bush administration was spent during the recent elections. Furthermore, some argue that a liaison office was established in Istanbul to establish lines of communication between the Iranian reformists and the outside world.
Even if these claims are true, the demonstrations in Iran lack organization and direction, especially now as there are signs that they are dying down in the face of stronger aggression by the regime. The linkages between Mousavi and the demonstrators, at least for the moment, are calls to cancel the election and release those who have been detained in a flurry of arrests in the government clamp down.
At its core, this is a struggle between Rafsanjani and his once close ally, Khamenei. Seeking to re-establish himself in Iran's political future, Rafsanjani is seeking the support of religious leaders in Qom and political decision makers. Rafsanjani plans to reign in Khamenei's authority and rule Iran with a new leadership ‘council' model in place of Ayatollah-style religious authoritarianism.
Iran will never be the same again. Even if the regime succeeds in hanging on in the short term and the elites reach a compromise, the people's demands will only continue to rise. It will be a slow and painful process. But a new page will be added to Iran's tale of revolutions.