Teaching Comparative Government and Politics

Monday, July 11, 2011

The power struggle in Iran

Sue Witmer sent me a link to this article from Foreign Affairs almost 3 weeks ago. Thanks, Sue. Sorry I neglected your message to the point of almost losing it. I'm glad I didn't because the article adds some depth to the headline news versions of the power struggle in Iran.

Showdown in Tehran

While much of the Middle East is in the throes of a historic struggle for democracy, Iran's main political fissure pits the clerical establishment against muscular, nationalist upstarts who seek to usurp power. And in this contest between Iran's elite factions, the world should be rooting for the clergy.

The primary players in this battle are President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The two forged an ideological alliance in 2005 and worked closely to crush the "Green Movement" after the disputed 2009 election. They are now engaged in a public spat over the spoils of power and, more importantly, over the proper interpretation of the Shiite fundamentalist ideology that inspired the 1979 Islamic Revolution…

This only confirms the singular importance of the Islamic Revolution to Shiite history and theology. If, as Khomeini claimed, the Islamic Republic is the embodiment of a just and sacred government, Shiites no longer need the clergy as the anchor of their faith. Holiness rests in the state and not the guardians of the state. The idea appeals to the muscular nationalism and Bonapartist ambitions of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which believes that military might, rather than clerical leadership, sustain Iran against domestic and foreign enemies.

Many Iranians dismiss Ahmadinejad's cultish messianism as no more than boorish superstition and clever political positioning. The clerics see it as a direct threat. Since taking office, Ahmadinejad has charged his cabinet to sign a pledge committing them to serve the Hidden Imam, peppered his speeches with messianic themes, and even claimed that he leads the "Hidden Imam's government." It is a folksy but religiously charged proposition.

Ahmadinejad was ridiculed when a video clip showed him bragging to a senior ayatollah that the Shiite messiah had visited him during his 2005 address before the United Nations. The larger message, which was not lost on skittish ayatollahs, was that the lay president was giving notice that the messiah favored him over the clerics. Mashaei, Ahmadinejad's close advisor, has been blunter, declaring that Shiism can and should do without clerics and that the Islamic Republic no longer needs a supreme leader.

Unsurprisingly, many in Iran have come to see Ahmadinejad as the Shiite Martin Luther, determined to break the clergy. Senior ayatollahs have accordingly criticized the president at every turn and refused to receive him or his representatives in the holy city of Qom…

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Labels: Iran, leadership, politics