Ahmadinejad’s agenda
[another perspective on Yoshie’s Persian Chavez - so what were the
jokes about his “personal hygiene”?]
New York Times - May 28, 2006 Iran Chief Eclipses Power of Clerics
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN
Published: May 28, 2006
TEHRAN, May 27 President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is trying to
consolidate power in the office of the presidency in a way never
before seen in the 27-year history of the Islamic Republic,
apparently with the tacit approval of Iran’s supreme leader,
according to government officials and political analysts here.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been less successful in the
economic realm than in the political arena.
That rare unity of elected and religious leadership at the highest
levels offers the United States an opportunity to talk to a
government, however combative, that has often spoken with multiple
voices. But if Washington, which severed relations with Iran after
the 1979 revolution, opened such a dialogue, it could lift the
prestige of the Iranian president, who has pushed toward
confrontation with the West.
Political analysts and people close to the government here say Mr.
Ahmadinejad and his allies are trying to buttress a system of
conservative clerical rule that has lost credibility with the public.
Their strategy hinges on trying to win concessions from the West on
Iran’s nuclear program and opening direct, high-level talks with the
United States, while easing social restrictions, cracking down on
political dissent and building a new political class from outside the
clergy.
Mr. Ahmadinejad is pressing far beyond the boundaries set by other
presidents. For the first time since the revolution, a president has
overshadowed the nation’s chief cleric, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei, on both domestic and international affairs.
He has evicted the former president, Mohammad Khatami, from his
offices, taken control of a crucial research organization away from
another former president, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, challenged
high-ranking clerics on the treatment of women and forced prominent
academics out of the university system.
“Parliament and government should fight against wealthy officials,”
Mr. Ahmadinejad said in a speech before Parliament on Saturday that
again appeared aimed at upending pillars of the status quo. “Wealthy
people should not have influence over senior officials because of
their wealth. They should not impose their demands on the needs of
the poor people.”
In this theocratic system, where appointed religious leaders hold
ultimate power, the presidency is a relatively weak position. In the
multiple layers of power that obscure the governance of Iran, no one
knows for certain where the ultimate decisions are being made. But
many of those watching in near disbelief at the speed and aggression
with which the president is seeking to accumulate power assume that
he is operating with the full support of Ayatollah Khamenei.
“Usually the supreme leader would be the front-runner in all internal
and external issues,” said Hamidreza Taraghi, the political director
of the strongly conservative Islamic Coalition Party. “Here we have
the president out front on all these issues, and the supreme leader
is supporting him.”
Mr. Ahmadinejad is pursuing a risky strategy that could offer him a
shot at long-term influence over the direction of the country or
ruin. He appears motivated at least in part by a recognition that
relying on clerics to serve as the public face of the government has
undermined the credibility of both, analysts here said.
The changing nature of Iran’s domestic political landscape has
potentially far-reaching implications for the United States. While
Iran has adopted a confrontational approach toward the West, it has
also signaled however clumsily a desire to mend relations. Though
the content of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s letter to President Bush was widely
mocked here and in Washington for its religious focus and preachy
tone, it played well to Iran’s most conservative religious leaders.
Analysts here said it represented both Mr. Ahmadinejad’s independence
and his position as a messenger for the system, and that the very act
of reaching out was significant.
“If the U.S. had relations with Iran under the reform government, it
would not have been a complete relationship,” said Alireza Akhari, a
retired general with the Revolutionary Guard and former deputy
defense minister, referring to Mr. Khatami’s administration. “But if
there can be a dιtente now, that means the whole country is behind
relations with the West.”
Mr. Ahmadinejad is trying to outpace the challenges buffeting Iran,
ones that could undermine his presidency and conservative control.
The economy is in shambles, unemployment is soaring, and the new
president has failed to deliver on his promise of economic relief for
the poor. Ethnic tensions are rising around the country, with
protests and terrorist strikes in the north and the south, and
students have been staging protests at universities around the country.
Mr. Ahmadinejad’s critics and there are many say that the public
will turn on him if he does not improve their lives, and soon. It may
ultimately prove impossible to surmount these problems while building
a new political elite, many people here said.
“The real issue here is we now have a government with no experience
running a country and dealing with foreign policy,” said Nasser
Hadian, a political science professor at Tehran University and
childhood friend of the president.
Mr. Ahmadinejad, who was elected last June, has adopted an
ideologically flexible strategy. He has called for restoring the
conservative values of the Islamic Revolution, yet at the same time
has relaxed enforcement of strict Islamic social codes on the street.
During the spring, when the warm weather sets in, young women are
often harassed by the volunteer vigilantes known as the Basiji for
their dress, but not this year. More music seems to be available in
stores than in the past small but telling changes, people here say.
If there is one consistent theme to his actions, it is the concept of
seeking justice, reflecting a central characteristic of Shiite Islam.
In more temporal terms, his strategy appears to be two-pronged: to
reinforce his support among hard-liners with sharp attacks on Israel
and the West, for example, while moving to appease a society weary of
the social and economic challenges of life in the Islamic republic.
“He is reshaping the identity of the elite,” said a political science
professor in Tehran who asked not to be identified so as not to
affect his relations with government officials. “Being against Jews
and Zionists is an essential part of this new identity.”
Mr. Ahmadinejad has been far freer to maneuver than his predecessor,
Mr. Khatami, whose movement for change frightened religious leaders.
Instead of having to prove his fealty to the system, Mr. Ahmadinejad
has been given or has taken the opportunity to try to calm the
streets. Perhaps most surprising, the man who was rumored to want to
segregate men and women on elevators and even sidewalks has emerged
as a proponent of women’s rights, challenging some of the nation’s
most powerful religious leaders.
“I believe Ahmadinejad’s government will be the most secular we have
had since the start of the revolution,” said Mahmoud Shamsolvaezin, a
journalist and political analyst. “The government is not a secular
one with secular thought. Ahmadinejad is a very religious man. But
the government recognizes it has no choice, this is what the public
demands.”
Mr. Ahmadinejad called for allowing women into stadiums, in an
attempt to reverse a post-revolution ban when religious leaders
decreed that sports arenas were not the proper environment for women.
Four grand ayatollahs objected to his decision, but he backed down
only when the supreme leader stepped in. Even then, Mr. Ahmadinejad
said he was suspending the decision, not canceling it.
Most significant, during the discussion of the stadium issue, the
president defended women in a way that put him outside the mainstream
of conservative Islamic discourse, even beyond Iran’s borders.
“Unfortunately, whenever there is talk of social corruption, fingers
are pointed at women,” Mr. Ahmadinejad said, in comments that for a
leader in this society were groundbreaking. “Shouldn’t men be blamed
for the problems, too?”
The president’s strategy is also aimed at limiting political
challenges to the system. While political arrests are down, and the
government has not moved to close privately held newspapers, it has
staged a few crucial arrests sending a chill through intellectual
and academic circles and it has pressured newspapers to be silent
on certain topics, like opposition to the nuclear program.
He also has struck back at those who would undermine or mock him. The
local press reported that the president became so incensed with jokes
about his personal hygiene that were being exchanged via text
messages on cellphones, that he had the messages stopped and people
at the top of the cellphone system punished.
Mr. Ahmadinejad offered voters change and promises to improve the
lives of the poor, who make up the majority of this country. But he
has been unable to push through economic changes by personal fiat, as
he has done in the political realm. He ordered the banks, for
example, to lower interest rates, and was rebuffed by the head of the
central bank. He offered to give inexpensive housing loans to the
poor but with only 300,000 available, more than 2 million people
applied. The program will cost the government more than $3 billion.
He has traveled around the country, promising to dole out development
projects the government can hardly afford. In the last year, the cost
of construction materials has jumped 30 to 50 percent, and prices of
dairy products have increased by more than 15 percent. Many people
are asking how this can happen when the price of oil is so high.
Without a strong grasp of economics, and an economy that is almost
entirely in the hands of the government, Mr. Ahmadinejad has grappled
with ways to inject oil revenue into the system without causing
inflation to soar. At the same time, the volatile political situation
has caused capital flight and limited foreign investment as the needs
of the public continue to grow alongside the president’s promises.
In politics, the president by turns ignores and confronts those who
have opposed him from the start, whether conservative or liberal, all
the while playing to the masses.
“Ahmadinejad knows there is a big gap between the intellectual elite
and the masses, and he knows how it serves his interest,” said
Emadedin Baghi, director of a prisoners’ rights group. “He is playing
to the masses and trying to widen this gap.”
He has managed to sideline opponents like Mr. Rafsanjani, either
through his own initiative or with the back-channel support of Mr.
Khamenei, the supreme leader. Mr. Rafsanjani, a midlevel cleric whom
Mr. Ahmadinejad defeated in a runoff for the presidency, “has been
undermined, he’s not a powerful person anymore,” said Muhammad
Atrianfar, a close ally of Mr. Rafsanjani and publisher of the daily
newspaper Shargh. He said Mr. Rafsanjani had tried to get the supreme
leader to rein the president in, but was unable to convince him.
Mr. Rafsanjani is representative of the class of people wealthy and
influential from the first generation of the revolution that the
president is trying to displace, said the retired general, Mr. Akhari.
Nazila Fathi contributed reporting for this article.