New Interviews

Part II - Pivotal Election: The Ahmadinejad Camp

January 29, 2013 | 12:32pm

Shaul Bakhash

Despite their current political dominance, Iran’s conservatives appear inordinately fearful of challenges looming in the June presidential election. Perhaps the most surprising is their concern that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may field a member of his inner circle against his former allies. Just four years ago, conservatives rallied to keep Ahmadinejad in office, despite unprecedented opposition during months of Green Movement protests. Now conservatives are dead-set on preventing the election of one of the president’s lieutenants.

Now in his final five months in office, Ahmadinejad faces a constitutional limit of two consecutive terms as president. But he clearly would like to remain a defining political force from behind the scenes. Iranians often refer to his strategy as the Putin model, after the Russian president’s tactics used to orchestrate the election of Dmitry Medvedev as president in 2008—until Putin could run again in 2012.

Over the past year, political speculation has centered primarily on Esfandiar Mashaie (left), Ahmadinejad’s principal aide, ideas-man and political adviser. He is widely considered to have formidable political skills; he is often credited with Rasputin-like influence over the president. The two men are also in-laws through the marriage of their children.

Conservatives have countered with a campaign to discredit the Ahmadinejad team as the “deviant current,” trying to push the president and his lieutenants outside the political and religious mainstream. Mashaie is a particular target of the conservatives’ ire.

Ahmadinejad’s ability to orchestrate a succession now seems extremely limited. He has lost much of his previous power as tensions between conservatives and his camp have escalated. The president fell afoul of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in 2012 when he tried to name his own candidate to the Intelligence Ministry— long regarded as the Supreme Leader’s prerogative.

The president and the Majles also have daggers drawn over several major issues, most volubly on Iran’s troubled economy. The president barely disguises his contempt for parliament. In turn, the deputies, led by Speaker Ali Larijani, criticize Ahmadinejad’s policies and his ministers daily. They regularly issue dire warnings about the president’s alleged infractions of the law and the constitution.

Ahmadinejad’s support from the Revolutionary Guards has long dissipated, even though he served in the elite military force during the eight-year war with Iraq. Guards commanders are now among his most vocal critics. Ahmadinejad’s vaunted subsidies reform program has cost rather than saved the government money, while the larger economy has suffered from the president’s misguided policies. The unorthodox religious views of the president and his team have alienated members of the clergy too.

Ultimately, the Supreme Leader seems highly unlikely to acquiesce in the candidacy of Mashaie and, potentially, other Ahmadinejad aides. The Council of Guardians could also disqualify the president’s allies.

Yet the president seems unfazed by his own isolation and the sometimes scathing criticism to which he has been subjected. His populist rhetoric and liberal welfare policies—and his readiness to thumb his nose at the high and mighty—have earned him favor with the rural and urban poor. And he still controls the interior ministry, which plays a role in running the elections.

So a challenge to the conservatives by an Ahmadinejad-backed candidate still seems likely.

Shaul Bakhash is the Clarence Robinson Professor of History at George Mason University.

Read Part I - Pivotal Election: The Conservatives

Read his chapter on the Six Presidents in "The Iran Primer."

Photo Credit: Russia's Presidential Press and Information Office (www.kremlin.ru)

Online news media are welcome to republish original blog postings from this website in full, with a citation and link back to The Iran Primer website (www.iranprimer.com) as the original source. Any edits must be authorized by the author. Permission to reprint excerpts from The Iran Primer book should be directed to permissions@usip.org

Posted by: Iran Primer

Part I - Pivotal Election: The Conservatives

January 28, 2013 | 2:56pm

Shaul Bakhash

Iran’s presidential elections, slated for mid-June, will take place against a background of domestic uncertainty. The economy has been battered by sanctions from abroad and mismanagement at home. Oil sales and foreign exchange earnings have plummeted, while inflation has soared. Industries are flagging. And banks face a looming crisis.

On foreign policy, there is no resolution in sight to the stand-off between Tehran and the P5+1—the five members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany—over Iran’s nuclear program. The ruling elite is riven by factions, and no leader seems to have a clear idea about how to extract Iran from its current predicaments. And the urban middle class, burned by what many consider rigged presidential elections in 2009, is increasingly uninterested in voting.

The election is still five months away, but a flurry of speculation has already begun about possible candidates. Presidential wannabes come from three broad groups: First, conservatives aligned with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Second, populists around President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. And third, reformists, two of whose leaders have been under house arrest for almost two years.

Conservatives now dominate Iran’s political arena, with other major parties and players squeezed out. So the most obvious candidates to run for president in June will come from this camp. The most prominent conservative contenders are:

· Ali Larijani , Speaker of Parliament (left) and former secretary of the National Security Council (NSC),

· Gholam Ali Haddad-Adel, a former Majles Speaker and current member of parliament from Tehran whose daughter is married to Khamenei’s son,

· and Ali Akbar Velayati, Khamenei’s principal foreign policy adviser.

All three are close to Khamenei, have shown little independence in the past, and are likely to follow Khamenei’s lead. Larijani is especially well-connected. His brother is the hard-line chief of the judiciary. He has served in cabinet posts and as head of national broadcasting. Khamenei has used him for sensitive foreign policy assignments in the past. But he won less than six per cent of the vote when he ran for president in 2005.

Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf, a former Revolutionary Guards commander, is also on many lists of potential candidates. He is well-regarded as the current mayor of Tehran, but he does not seem to resonate with voters. He garnered less than 14 per cent of the vote in the 2005 presidential ballot against Ahmadinejad and other candidates.

Three other possible conservative candidates are men with national security or nuclear energy experience.

· Hassan Rouhani, a former head of the NSC and lead nuclear negotiator. He has indicated a desire to run, based on his ability to address Iran’s foreign policy problems.

· Saeed Jalili, the current head of the NSC and principal nuclear negotiator with the world’s six major powers, or P5+1. Several websites are promoting his candidacy.

· Foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi, a U.S.-educated physicist who once ran Iran’s nuclear agency and was Iran’s representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency, may also run.

These men are principally technocrats. Lacking a political base of their own, they too would be beholden to the Supreme Leader. But they could present themselves as competent problem solvers— candidates with the foreign policy experience to resolve outstanding issues with the United States and the Europeans. Other possible conservative candidates, such as former Guards commander Mohsen Rezai, are long-shots.

There are hints about attempts to coalesce conservatives around one candidate. Haddad-Adel recently called on principlists— as conservative members of parliament call themselves— to avoid giving reformists an opening to split the conservative vote. Among the principlists, the speaker said, he, Velayati or Qalibaf should be the candidate. But agreeing on one conservative candidate may be a pipe-dream, especially since the other two parties to this understanding have not yet confirmed it.

Iran’s conservatives come in many shades. About 25 percent of the members of parliament belong to a faction that owes allegiance to Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi, an ultra-conservative cleric. During the parliamentary elections last year, the principlists failed to agree on a single slate of candidates, despite much fanfare and repeated efforts. Personal ambitions may also produce more than one conservative candidate.

Yet the current political environment gives conservatives the best shot at the next presidency since they effectively control the key levers of power. They are dominant in the Majles, the security services, the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij paramilitary forces. The 12-man Council of Guardians, which rules on the qualifications of candidates, is overwhelmingly conservative. And they are the majority in the network of Khamenei-appointed clerics who serve as Friday prayer leaders and in other posts.

Conservatives have the means to mobilize vast numbers of voters who rely on the regime for employment and largesse. The Supreme Leader’s sympathies also lie with the conservatives, even though his position technically calls for him to broker among Iran’s diverse political factions.

Shaul Bakhash is the Clarence Robinson Professor of History at George Mason University.

Read his chapter on the Six Presidents in "The Iran Primer."

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons and Harald Dettenborn

Posted by: Iran Primer

Profile: Revolutionary Guards Chief Gen. Jafari

January 21, 2013 | 12:12pm

Alireza Nader

As commander of the Revolutionary Guards, General Mohammad Ali Jafari is one of the dozen most powerful men in Iran. He is a hard-line ideologue loyal to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He rose to power through a combination of ideological commitment and military vision. Jafari now commands one of the most feared militaries in the Middle East, which is also far better equipped than Iran’s conventional army, navy and air force.

Jafari has an estimated 150,000 troops under his control. The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps has its own powerful army (between 100,000 and 125,000), navy (up to 20,000) and air force (about 20,000). It also oversees several thousand members in the elite Qods Force, which trains and supports foreign insurgent organizations.

Yet Jafari also commands a force divided by personal and political rivalries and under pressure from unprecedented sanctions that specifically target him, the top military leadership and the many military and economic wings of the Revolutionary Guards. He still has to prove whether he can protect and preserve an increasingly exposed regime.

Jafari now has two pivotal missions: First, to defend Iran from external threats, including a military strike by Israel or the United States. Second, to defend the Islamic Republic from internal challenges, including from the reformist movement. His re-organization of the Guards in recent years was designed to achieve both objectives.

The Revolutionary Guards chief has used some of the toughest language in describing the dangers of attacking Iran. “If a war breaks out where one side is Iran and the other side is the West and U.S., it's natural that a problem should occur in the Strait of Hormuz. Export of energy will be harmed. It's natural that this will happen,” he said in September 2012.

He also warned that Iran might withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and attack U.S. bases in the Middle East. In the September news conference, he said Iran could obliterate Israel if it hit Iran. "Our response to Israel is clear: I think nothing will remain of Israel [should it attack Iran]. Given Israel's small land area and its vulnerability to a massive volume of Iran's missiles, I don't think any spot in Israel will remain safe," he said.

Appointed commander in 2007, Jafari has implemented ideas developed in previous positions, including asymmetric tactics in case of conflict with the United States or Israel. “Given the enemy's numerical or technological superiority, the IRGC would use asymmetrical warfare capabilities, such as those used by Hezbollah in its 2006 war with Israel in Lebanon. Iranian strategy would also reflect the strengths and weaknesses of the U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq,” he said three days after his appointment.

One of his key moves was dividing Iran’s military command-and-control into 31 distinct units, each of which could function independently in the case others were hit or destroyed. He also merged the Basij—which can mobilize hundreds of thousands of paramilitary forces—under the Guards command.

Jafari’s restructuring of the Revolutionary Guards enhanced Tehran’s ability to counter an outside military attack. But it also helped the regime counter internal disturbances. The regime experienced its most serious challenge after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s disputed re-election in 2009, when millions of protesters took to the streets throughout Iran to contest the outcome.

Jafari has since framed the 2009 protests as “sedition” against the Islamic Republic. In 2010, he said, “The root cause of what happened in the election and over the past eight months" reflected differences between "two fundamentally different views, one Islamic, and the other one materialistic." He has repeatedly pledged that the Guards would oppose reformists participating in future elections. But he has also distanced himself from Ahmadinejad over the president’s political challenges to the supreme leader.

Jafari has come a long way under the revolutionary regime. He was born to a poor family in the central city of Yazd. He participated in demonstrations against the monarchy. After the shah’s overthrow, he joined the new Revolutionary Guards intelligence unit and served in the western Kurdish region. After Iraq’s invasion, Jafari held several senior positions during the eight-year war, a key credential in his rise to power.

In 1992, after the war, Jafari was appointed commander of the Guards ground forces, in addition to commanding Tehran’s Sarallah unit that is responsible for protecting Tehran. He was reportedly deeply affected by the 1999 Tehran student riots, the largest internal disturbance since the 1979 revolution up to that point. Jafari was one of 29 Revolutionary Guards officers who wrote a letter to then President Mohammad Khatami implicitly threatening a coup if Khatami continued his reformist agenda.

Jafari became the director of the Guards’ Center for Strategic Studies in 2005. During his tenure, he identified two critical threats to the Islamic Republic: a foreign attempt to foment a “soft revolution” through support of Iranian NGOs and activists and a U.S. military attack that could topple the regime. He used those experiences to craft Iran’s current military strategy—at what could be a pivotal turning point in the nuclear crisis.

Alireza Nader is a senior policy analyst at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation and a lecturer on Iranian politics at the George Washington University.

Read Alireza Nader's chapter on the Revolutionary Guards in "The Iran Primer"

Photo Credits: U.S. State Department and Wikimedia IRGC logo by user Shahin.

Posted by: Iran Primer

Iran’s Influence in Afghanistan After U.S. Pullout

January 17, 2013 | 12:40pm

Omar Samad

Has Iran's influence in Afghanistan changed since the U.S. troop surge in 2010? What steps has it taken in anticipation of the U.S. withdrawal planned for 2014?

The Islamic Republic considers the U.S. presence in Afghanistan a major security concern along its 600-mile eastern border. It was deeply suspicious of the 2010 U.S. surge to dislodge Taliban forces from southern Afghanistan. Iranian leaders are now more concerned about a residual U.S. presence—albeit in smaller numbers—after 2014. On January 11, President Hamid Karzai visited the White House and announced that coalition forces will transition to a support role this spring. Tehran is keeping a close eye on the Bilateral Security Agreement under negotiation between Kabul and Washington, and actively trying to influence that debate inside Afghanistan as well as at the regional level.

Iran’s influence since 2001—when it supported the U.N.-backed effort to topple the Taliban and establish a new political order—has gone through different phases. It used mainly soft power to strengthen its foothold in Afghanistan through investment, trade and cultural linkages. Over the years, Iranian security and intelligence institutions have become increasingly active in prodding a Western withdrawal and shaping Afghan politics.

What are the key issues on which Afghanistan and Iran agree and disagree?

The five main drivers of contemporary Afghan-Iranian relations are:

● Narcotics: Iran is not only a transit point for the Afghan narcotics business, but also a major consumer market for opiates. The United Nations estimates that the Islamic Republic has 1.2 million drug addicts but others think there could be millions more. Iranian forces crack down on the drug trade by fighting heavily armed traffickers and patrolling the border. Tehran claims to spend $1 billion annually on its war on drugs. Iranian leaders critique the Afghan government and its Western allies for failing to cease the cultivation and production of narcotics.

● Refugees: Iran is increasingly politicizing the presence of illegal Afghan workers and refugees, estimated at more than one million. Authorities have reportedly mistreated Afghan refugees and deported thousands since 2007. Kabul is increasingly frustrated and resentful of Tehran’s policy toward refugees. The U.N. estimated that Iran deported 711 Afghan refugees per day during the first half of 2012. But nearly all of the deportees were single males who entered illegally to find work.

● Water sharing: While Afghanistan and Iran have a comprehensive treaty on the Helmand River water rights dating to 1973, there are tensions about the lack of verification and enforcement of the flow of water into Iran. The Kamal Khan Dam, which regulates the flow of water to Iran’s Sistan Balochistan Province, is a source of animosity on both sides.

● Cultural and religious influence peddling: There is increasing unease in Afghan political and cultural communities about unregulated Iranian funding of cultural, media and religious activities in Afghanistan, mainly to the Shiite Hazara, an ethnic minority. The Taliban systematically killed and displaced thousands of Hazara before 2001. Over the last decade, Iranian relief organizations and businesses have reportedly funded construction of houses, libraries, roads, schools and clinics in several Afghan provinces, including Herat.

● Trade, investment and currency: While both countries are in favor of expanded economic and business ties, the Afghan economy’s weak base has mostly benefited surrounding countries, including Iran. It has flooded Afghan markets with low-quality goods. The trade imbalance is further compounded by heavy Iranian investment in western Afghanistan. Iran has also destabilized Afghan markets by purchasing large amounts of foreign currency, a counter-measure against international sanctions on its nuclear program.

What influence does Tehran have on President Hamid Karzai and his government?

Officially, Afghan-Iranian relations are portrayed as normal and friendly. Afghans express appreciation for Iranian assistance against the Soviets during the 1980s and against the Taliban during the 1990s. However, tensions simmer under the surface, especially about the treatment of Afghan refugees in Iran and, more recently, about Iranian agents fuelling parts of the armed insurgency.

Hamid Karzai, weary of Pakistan’s meddling in favor of the Taliban over the years, has attempted to maintain a more balanced approach toward Iran. He likes to portray himself as a nationalist president rather than a U.S.-supported leader. He has also taken into consideration Iranian recommendations, accepted Iranian aid, unsuccessfully tried to be a broker between Iran and the West, and avoided rattling relations with Tehran on contentious bilateral issues.

What is Iran's vision for Afghanistan's future? What are its goals in the short term and long term?

  Iran’s vision for Afghanistan and its own role is in flux and now tied to other factors, such the nuclear standoff, the Saudi Arabian and Arab dynamics, the U.S. presence post-2014, regional alignments and rivalries, the state of its economy and domestic political stability.

  It would prefer not to have to be concerned about Afghanistan. To this end, it is focusing on carving its sphere of influence, accelerating a Western withdrawal, and assuring that its interests are protected.

Iran is probably not in favor of a Western-influenced , democratic, affluent Afghanistan, but at the same time, is concerned that an unstable, opium producing and radicalized Afghanistan can also pause a major threat to its interests, as experienced in the 1990s.

Torn between these two conflicting scenarios, and taking into consideration all other factors, it will try to prioritize its strategic and security needs in order to influence the course of events to the best of its abilities and given the resources at its disposal.

Omar Samad, President of Silkroad Consulting and previous Senior Afghan Expert at the United States Institute of Peace, was Afghanistan’s Ambassador to France (2009-2011) and Canada (2004-2009).

Photo Credit: Pahari Sahib (Image:BlankMap-World-v5.png) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], via Wikimedia Commons

Posted by: Iran Primer

Iran-Egypt: Prospects of a New Alliance?

January 11, 2013 | 5:40pm

Interview with Joshua Stacher

By Garrett Nada

What is the state of relations between the Muslim Brotherhood and Iran, especially in light of Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi’s third visit to Egypt since President Mohamed Morsi took office in June 2012?

After 32 years without diplomatic relations, Egypt and Iran have initiated a dialogue since the Muslim Brotherhood has risen to power. But the Islamic Republic and the Brotherhood are not natural allies. The Brotherhood is a mainstream Sunni Islamist group that is more aligned to other Arab states in the Gulf than to Iran. The Sunni-Shiite divide in the Middle East is not a real tangible thing. It is largely imagined or manufactured, but powerful actors such as Saudia Arabia have spent money and capital to make people aware of this. Hence, the regional players usually operate along sectarian lines.

The Palestinian issue is the one exception. The Muslim Brotherhood and Iran both have strong ties to Hamas, a Sunni group with political and military wings. The Brotherhood has even expressed solidarity with Hezbollah, a Lebanese Shiite group backed by Iran. But the Brotherhood’s view of Hezbollah has little to do with shared ideology. It is solely based on politics and a commitment to stop perceived injustice or oppression. The Brotherhood generally supports groups that it perceives as oppressed.

What was the agenda of the visit for Iran? For Egypt?

Egypt and Iran had a common agenda, but perhaps with different goals. The main item on Egypt’s agenda was the Syrian conflict. Morsi has repeatedly denounced President Bashar Assad’s crackdown on his own people. In August, he launched a four-nation initiative—Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey—to halt the escalating violence.

And in September 2012, Morsi publicly acknowledged that Tehran was “vital” in resolving the crisis. Iran, as a key Syrian backer, could influence a transition.

Iran focused on the Syrian issue, but partly for its own political reasons. Tehran feel increasingly isolated. It wants to explore better relations with Egypt, the most populous and important Arab country politically. Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi, on an African tour, has been reaching out to other countries to have conversations.

The visit, a regional meet-and-greet, was a way for both countries to broadly open up a dialogue. For now, Egypt is willing to see where the dialogue with Iran leads, but it is long short of cementing an alliance that could change the region’s political balance. The stakes were low since both sides had no concrete expectations.

What are the prospects for Morsi changing Egypt’s relationship with Iran?

The visit could lead to more talks between the two countries, perhaps on economic issues. But there is a disconnect between how U.S. and Egyptian policy circles view Salehi’s meeting with Morsi. The two countries are unlikely to become close allies or change the balance of power in the region. The Muslim Brotherhood has acted pragmatically both before and after the 2011 revolution, and Egypt has little incentive to break away from American patronage.

Iran has little to offer Egypt. It cannot buy off Egypt with foreign aid or arms. Tehran also lacks influence with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The United States and its Persian Gulf allies have more capital for Egypt and better connections with international financial institutions than Iran.

The Egyptian government would have a hard time selling its public on an alliance with Iran. Egypt does not have a significant Shiite minority, and its population is heavily nationalist. Egyptians are also staunch supporters of the Syrian revolution, so prospects for opening up to Iran are slim.

Iran also views Israel as an adversary, while Morsi played a pivotal role in brokering a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas to end the November conflict in Gaza.

How do you assess reports that a new Tehran-Cairo relationship could transform the Egyptian military and interior ministry and Islamize society?

Morsi may be considering restructuring internal security services but it has nothing to do with Iran or any attempt to “Islamize” society.

The issue of security forces is sensitive because Morsi wants to introduce reforms that extend the executive's control over the institution. It does not seek to reform it or abolish it. The Ministry of Interior is still staffed by Mubarak-era bureaucrats and appointees who want legal guarantees of the ministry’s independence and immunity from oversight, much like a deal negotiated with the army generals.

The Ministry of Interior is still the nerve center for domestic surveillance and riot police. In 2009 and 2010, approximately 1.5 million Egyptians worked for the ministry, many as informants. One in 50 citizens worked for various security services—roughly equal to the ratio of East Germany’s security services before 1989. During Mubarak’s rule, the ministry was responsible for egregious acts of torture, corruption and thuggery.

This controversy has coincided with—and entangled in—the Iranian foreign minister’s visit. The Gulf-based Arab press claimed that former Minister of Interior Ahmed Gamal al Din was ousted in early January because he objected to a meeting between President Morsi and a Revolutionary Guards commander. A Muslim Brotherhood spokesman called the reports “pure fiction.” Similarly, the Egyptian domestic press does not seem to give the reports as much credence as the Gulf-based press. For the time being, it is best to treat this as a rumor rather than fact.

Joshua Stacher is a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars currently on leave from Kent State University.

Photo Credit: Ali Akbar Salehi by Palácio do Planalto

Posted by: Garrett Nada

The Islamists Are Coming

The Islamists Are Coming, edited by Robin Wright, surveys the rise of Islamist groups in the wake of the Arab Spring. Often lumped together, the more than 50 Islamist parties with millions of followers now constitute a whole new spectrum—separate from either militants or secular parties. They will shape the new order in the world’s most volatile region more than any other political bloc. Yet they have diverse goals and different constituencies. Sometimes they are even rivals.

Recent Interviews

Part I: Iran-Syria Religious Ties

06/03/2013 - 12:26
Latest on the Race: Rafsanjani Redux?

05/19/2013 - 23:54
Latest on the Race: Jalili, Ideologue on Twitter

05/15/2013 - 11:12
Latest on the Race: Heir Apparent Esfandiar Mashaei

05/13/2013 - 14:10
Sport I:Iran and US Wrestle--in a different way

05/13/2013 - 12:00

Robin Wright's blog

What the world will learn from Iran's election

United States Institute of Peace

The Iran Primer

New Interviews

Part II - Pivotal Election: The Ahmadinejad Camp

Part I - Pivotal Election: The Conservatives

Profile: Revolutionary Guards Chief Gen. Jafari

Iran’s Influence in Afghanistan After U.S. Pullout

Iran-Egypt: Prospects of a New Alliance?

The Islamists Are Coming

Recent Interviews

Robin Wright's blog

Discussions By Author

Connect With Us

Our Partners