Seneca Doane convinced me to republish after an ill-fated decision to delete this diary. Consider this a Part III of my diaries on Iran's election crisis. Here, the forgotten history of the mullahs and a warning about Rafsanjani. Again, a diary of mine's been validated after-the-fact, so I've only fixed grammatical errors and changed title since I wrote on Saturday. Dallasdoc's diary confirms the gist of mine with urgency. Seeing as Rafsanjani is trying to--you know--oust the Supreme Leader of Iran. Hence, I'm restoring this back from "teh cache" (where you can compare diaries) for the record.
Herein I'm bringing unheard voices. From Iran's history, from China, from India. And they caution us to step back for a moment while they share their insight:
A week ago I warned about this crackdown, while people cheered the death of the Islamic Republic of Iran prematurely:
The Foreign Media Are Witnesses! (3+ / 0-)
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Lynwaz, kyril, Olon
Ahmadinejad is getting them OUT so he can begin the repression! They know what they're doing. Notice how the violence is not [yet] the kind of level many Americans/Westerners would expect from the repressive government? Because they're holding back.
They are going to try to repress the people, and if Khamenei does redo the vote, no doubt he'll stand by as voters are intimidated into not voting or going for Ahmadinejad...
by Nulwee on Sun Jun 14, 2009 at 11:57:41 PM PDT
How did I know this was going to happen a week ago? Much of my information comes in real time: tweets and Sullivan and the rec list. But more flows from scholar Reza Aslan, Director Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council, Iranian history itself and other topical Asian voices. Today, one such Asian voice is retired Indian diplomat, MK Bhadrakumar, as he comments on China's reaction to Iran. Bhadrakumar skillfully weaves the history of these 30-year politicians back into the dialogue. For starters? How about the popular but-wrong CW that reformers are battling the theocracy?
Imam Khomeini was wary of the Iranian mullahs and he created the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps as an independent force to ensure the mullahs didn't hijack the revolution. Equally, his preference was that the government should be headed by non-clerics. In the early years of the revolution, the conspiracies hatched by the triumvirate of Beheshti-Rafsanjani-Rajai who engineered the ouster of the secularist leftist president Bani Sadr (who was Khomeini's protege), had the agenda to establish a one-party theocratic state. These are vignettes of Iran's revolutionary history that might have eluded the intellectual grasp of George W Bush, but Obama must be au fait with the deviousness of Rafsanjani's politics.
The same Ayatollah Rafsanjani later won the presidency as a reformist, and lost badly a 2005 bid against Ahmadinejad, seeting the stage for today. That the "economically liberal, politically authoritarian, [emphasis mine] and philosophically traditional" (as wikipedia describes him) former president is corrupt as a Roman senator and tied himself to Mousavi provided ample fodder for Ahmadinejad's side in the run-up to this election. Why would the "reformist" lose to Ahmadinejad? An article from 2005:
In retrospect, Ahmadinejad's popularity—he outpolled Rafsanjani by 7 million votes—reflects public anger at corruption and broken promises of more jobs and prosperity. "We underestimated the degree to which they [Iranians] were angered by Rafsanjani's corruption," says Takeyh. He says there has been "a shift in Iranian public attitudes" from lofty, revolutionary goals to pragmatically getting things done—a quality that worked to Ahmadinejad's advantage. "It's a vote for efficiency as opposed to idealism."
In 2005, working class people rebelled against the theocracy by voting for Ahmadinejad. But behind-the-scenes, Ahmadinejad is a former military-intelligence man--of the Pasdaran--and the Pasdaran are using their political capital to strike back against the mullahs. Now that Pasdaran people occupy one third of the Majles (parliament) and much of Iran's economy in counterweight to Rafsanjani, the clerics are trying to take their power away again a bit late.
Mousavi is the affable front man for the mullahs, who fear that another four years of Ahmadinejad would hurt their vested interests. Ahmadinejad has already begun marginalizing the clergy from the sinecures of power and the honey pots of the Iranian economy, especially the oil industry.
Not as sexy as good guy, bad guy, is it? Bellicose nationalism remains the option for Iran's working poor. If those now chanting "Death to the Dictator" oust Supreme Leader Khamenei somehow (doubtful) the slew of secondary mullahs would be free to hoard influence.
And the US might get caught off-guard over what to do when the dominoes fall:
If Rafsanjani's putsch succeeds, Iran would at best bear resemblance to a decadent outpost of the "pro-West" Persian Gulf. Would a dubious regime be durable? More important, is it what Obama wishes to see as the destiny of the Iranian people? The Arab street is also watching. Iran is an exception in the Muslim world where people have been empowered. Iran's multitudes of poor, who form Ahmadinejad's support base, detest the corrupt, venal clerical establishment. They don't even hide their visceral hatred of the Rafsanjani family.
Alas, the political class in Washington is clueless about the Byzantine world of Iranian clergy. Egged on by the Israeli lobby, it is obsessed with "regime change". The temptation will be to engineer a "color revolution". But the consequence will be far worse than what obtains in Ukraine. Iran is a regional power and the debris will fall all over. The US today has neither the clout nor the stamina to stem the lava flow of a volcanic eruption triggered by a color revolution that may spill over Iran's borders.
Remember that Bhadrakumar is commenting on Chinese attitude, which is concerned with security and stability foremost. But his analysis is correct, this is why Saudi Arabia and the US supported the Iraqi invasion of Iran in the 1980s. To prevent the fledgling practice of Islamic democracy from spreading to the Arab world, undermining authoritarian power and shaking up the oil industry, respectively. As the French revolution and Haitian political history demonstrate in the West, democratic movements do not always travel on a linear course. They are often interrupted, subverted and turned in on themselves, becoming nightmares not only for their people but also their regions. Meddle in a fight between militant nationalists and money-loving clerics and a military dictatorship could prevail.
Beware the neo-cons and their sugary promises of freedom.
Previous Iranian Diaries: The first part, demographics and a quick "case for a case" of why Ahmadinejad's win was fraudulent. The second, Ahmadinejad's conspiracy and the rumblings of the military.