Reports indicate Khamenei may be chronically ill

Numerous news outlets have speculated that recent events indicate that Iran's Supreme Leader may be suffering from a serious illness.

Hossein Rostami, an Iranian journalist, has reportedly wrote on Facebook that this "is not good news coming our way from our master."

He accordingly urged supports of the Supreme Leader to "pray deeply for him."

The report points out that Mr. Khamenei has not been seen in public since October 5

Last week he did not give his customary greeting to Iranian pilgrims as they set off for Mecca for the Shiite religious festival of Ghadeer.

Rostami has been asked by the Iranian authorities not to discuss or speculate about Mr. Khamenei's health online.

He has however posted a portrait of Mr. Khamenei accompanied by a poem by the legendary Persian poet Hafez on the subject of health. (The Washington Times, October 31)

Supreme Leadership Redefined

Iran’s 2013 Presidential Election – Part II

By Nader Uskowi

With nine weeks left for Iranians to elect their next president, the political factions and a score of presidential hopefuls have started their campaigns in earnest. Surprisingly, no major figures from left to right have yet emerged as the consensus candidates to replace Ahmadinejad. The growing fragmentation of Iranian politics even as the election nears could have many reasons but chief among them could be the weakening position of the supreme leader in arbitrating disputes among political factions. Ironically this development appears to be the legacy of supreme leader’s celebrated victory in his direct intervention in the presidential election of 2009.

In this segment of our series on the upcoming presidential election, we examine a supreme leadership that has been redefined since 2009, and the effect of this transition on the election.      

Supreme Leadership Redefined

The 2009 presidential election in Iran resulted in a dispute among major power figures in the country over the election result, pitting a former prime minister and a former speaker of Majlis against a sitting president and their powerful supporters within the political elite of the country.

In older days of the Islamic Republic, the representatives of different political factions facing as serious a crisis would seek counsel and the help of the supreme leader for a peaceful resolution to the conflict. 

In 2009, Khamenei broke with that 30-year tradition of being the arbitrator of last resort and openly sided with the sitting president and his supporters. Karrubi would later famously recall that whenever there were serious disagreements within the regime (“nezam”), they would go to Khomeini and later Khamenei and the supreme leader would somehow resolve the issue. But post-2009 disputed election, he could not go to Khamenei, Karrubi said, because the supreme leader was now part of the problem.

Supporting a political faction at expense of others was something Khomeini, and Khamenei in his first twenty years, had tried to avoid. Khamenei’s fateful decision to side with Ahmadinejad against Mousavi and Karrubi was a game changer. The supreme leader was now one of the political actors among others, albeit a more powerful one; but not anymore the regime’s arbitrator of the last resort. The supreme leadership redefined would soon face open challenges by a number of powerful politicians unseen in the history of the Islamic Republic. Khamenei won the day in 2009, but the supreme leadership ended up at its weakest position since the victory of the Islamic revolution more than three decades ago.

A recent complaint by MP Mohammad Hassan Asefri about the new realities somehow sums up the transition. “In the past years, the orders of the Supreme Leader went as far as printing banners and holding gatherings, but unfortunately no efforts were made to obey his guidelines,” said Asefri. (IRNA, 25 March)

What we are witnessing in this campaign supports the observation that the office of the supreme leader has lost its key mission, that of being the last arbitrator of disputes and the unifying force in the country. The right’s inability to field a unity candidate and its growing fragmentation only weeks away from the election would not have happened in the past.

Even Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, the influential ultraconservative theologian and the leader of the Stability Front (“Jebhey-e Paydari”) coalition, has recently expressed serious concerns at Khamenei’s lack of ability to unite the “principlists.” Yazdi fears that the disunity would play into the hands of moderates, reformists and Ahmadinejad’s “deviationists,” the other three factions competing with the right to capture the presidency.

The Rafsanjani Factor

Two currents of thought and their corresponding figureheads and political factions have dominated the Iranian politics since the death of Ayatollah Khomeini in June 1989. Khamenei represented the left-leaning old-school revolutionary radicals, believing in the supremacy of the state in all things political, economic, cultural and personal. “I am not a diplomat, I am a revolutionary,” said Khamenei famously in February, a quarter of century after the death of the leader of the revolution. Rafsanjani, on the other hand, became the chief proponent of reforms from above, believing in major economic reforms, the power of private enterprise and the normalization of relations with the West.

Khamenei and Rafsanjani became not just the figureheads of two competing ideologies, but also the political titans of a country coming out of a decade of war and revolution. For those of us who have experienced China’s Cultural Revolution, we can probably compare the two heavyweights to Mao and Deng Xiaoping respectively.

Khamenei won the day in 2009 when he intervened on behalf of Ahmadinejad against the wartime premier Mousavi. But ironically four years later, Rafsanjani, and not Khamenei, could be the kingmaker in the upcoming election.  

Rafsanjani gets his support from all who are dissatisfied with the current economic situation in the country; the drastic loss in value of the national currency, severe limitations imposed by sanctions on Iranian traders, near collapse of private industrial sector, lack of access to global banking, high inflation and unemployment, and a rate of economic growth currently at zero. The bazaar, led by the old guard, powerful people like Asgharoladi, are lining up behind Rafsanjani, trying to draft him to run for another term as president, or pick a surrogate to form the next government.

The current balance of forces, however, would require an agreement between Khamenei and Rafsanjani on the upcoming election. Unless Rafsanjani decides to run himself, a list of compromise candidates, people like Mohsen Rezaie, is expected to be discussed between the two in the coming days.

In the next segment, we will examine the strength and weaknesses of major political factions, including the Stability Front of Mesbah, traditionalist coalition led by Qalibaf, Velayati and Haddad, the reformists and former president Khatami, as well as Ahmadinejad’s camp and his political confidant Mashaie.

Photo: Iranian politics from left to right: Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Ayatollah Ali-Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (Leader.ir/ISNA)

Iran’s 2013 Presidential Election Series:
Part I: Running for President
Part II: Supreme Leadership Redefined

Brother Against Brother-Iran

Ahmadinejad vs Ahmadinejad

By Jabbar Fazeli, MD

Davood Ahmadinejad has publicly criticized his brother, the Iranian president Ahmadinejad, for using the term "زنده باد بهار" (long live spring) in a reference to the approaching Iranian elections (1).

The president's brother contends that the indirect mention of the election in Ahmadinejad's recent speech is contrary to the supreme leader directive to not start the "election campaigning" early in order to minimize the appearance of political divisions in the country. (Good luck with that!)

He recently came in support of Larijani in his clash with his brother. Mr. Larijani referenced Davood Ahmadinejad in his parliament speech as a source from whm he had received information on the deviant faction (جريان انحرافي),  in a reference to the Mashaai camp which is supported by the president.

Davood Ahmadinejad had resigned a post in the president's office in 2008 and has been close to the conservative camp, but It is not clear if this affirmation of allegiance to the supreme leader and Larijani, at the expense of his own brother, is out of his long held convictions or is an act of political self-preservation.

References: 

(1) http://www.bbc.co.uk/persian/iran/2013/02/130212_nm_ahamdijead_spring_reaction.shtml

Photo credit: unkonwn, Fars news

Is Mesbah Challenging Khamenei?

By Nader Uskowi

Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi Mesbah Yazdi, the leader of the ultraconservative and fundamentalist faction in the Assembly of Experts, known as “Mesbahieh”, has been delivering major political speeches lately in which he seems to be challenging Ayatollah Khamenei’s position as the country’s supreme leader.

On 24 May, in a speech at Qum’s influential Faizieh Madressa, Iran’s premier Islamic theological seminary, Mesbah said if there were two people equally qualified to be the supreme leader (“Vali Faghih”), the Assembly of Expert must draw a coin to choose the country’s supreme leader [ILNA]. This blogger at first thought he was showing a humorous side, but Mesbah at the end of the speech said the following:

“A person who himself and whose family have stolen from the public treasury, loses his right to be the leader. A person governing on behalf of the [Hidden Imam] must be as innocent as the [Hidden Imam] himself.”

The use of such language, in a formal speech, delivered at Qum’s fabled Faizieh, cannot be underestimated. Islamic Republic’s supreme leader (“Vali Faghih”) is believed to be ruling the country on behalf of Shia’s twelfth imam, Hazrat Mahdi, the Lord of Time, hidden at present only surfacing to lead the global Resurrection.

A week later, Mesbah delivered another speech in the holy city of Mashhad criticizing the inability of the Islamic Republic to fight the growing secularism inside Iran and to demonstrate the necessity for having a supreme leader (“Vali Faghih”) governing the country.

“The reason our society, after thirty years under the Islamic Republic, has not accepted the necessity of Vali Faghih, is the dominant culture, the secularism dominating our society. Our leaders believe that the position of Vali Faghih is a payback given by the public to the clergy for their role during the Islamic revolution.”

More interestingly was a reference to Mesbah as “Imam Mesbah Yazdi” in Wednesday’s online edition of Ansawr News, a site close to the country’s ultraconservative faction. So far, only the late Ayatollah Khomeini has been given the title of an “Imam”, as in Imam Khomeini. Calling Mesbah an Imam could not have been a typo. Ansar News actually explained its use in its article.

“The use of the title of “Imam” for Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi has precedence. We have used the title in our history to designate the special position in society by scholars such as Fakhr Razi or Mohammad Qazali.”

Razi was a renowned Islamic legal scholar of the 12^th century who was born in Ray, Iran, and is buried in Herat, Afghanistan. Qazali was as renowned Islamic theologian, living in Tus, near Mashhad, in the 11^th century. Calling Mesbah an Imam and comparing him to Razi and Qazali have profound implications.

Today, Ansawr News site was taken offline, and when it reappeared later it did not have the article on “Imam Mesbah Yazdi.” Ayatollah Khamenei is reportedly very angry at Mesbah’s recent speeches and the references to him as an imam.

Making matters more complicated, is the public knowledge that Mesbah is the spiritual guide of the sitting president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Mesbah Yazdi to Become Chairman of Assembly of Experts

Informed sources in Tehran say that Ayatollah Taqi Mesbah Yazdi is favored to become the next chairman of the Assembly of Experts. The potentially powerful post was vacated after the death of Ayatollah Ali Meshkini on 30 July. The 86-man clerical assembly will elect its new chairman at its next meeting scheduled for 4-6 September in Tehran (Mesbah's picture at top, Fars file photo).

Mesbah’s election will further tilt the balance of power towards the fundamentalists. Mesbah is the spiritual guru of President Ahmadinejad. Mesbah’s election will also mean a major defeat for Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, favored by the moderates to head the assembly.

The Assembly of Experts is empowered to choose and supervise the Supreme Leader. Under Meshkini, the Assembly all but gave up its constitutional role to supervise the activities of the Supreme Leader and his executive offices.

Mesbah Yazdi believes the supreme leader is chosen by God, presumably through the Assembly of Experts.