Iran: Rafsanjani, Ahmadinejad, and the Multi-Sided Chess Match

The Latest from Iran (25 September): Catching Up

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Yesterday EA's Mr Smith sent me a challenging analysis of the significance of this week's Assembly of Experts meetings and Hashemi Rafsanjani's latest manoeuvres:

"Basically the much-anticipated Assembly of Experts meeting ended up according to plan. There were some grievances on the current state of affairs --- Rafsanjani and others, such as Ayatollah Dastgheib, did emit warnings regarding the government --- but all in all it was far from being a threat to Ayatollah Khamenei. Of course, we have to wait and see what the proposal from the eminent politicians cited by Rafsanjani is going to be about. The photos published from the customary meeting between the AoE and Khamenei relay an atmosphere of cordiality. All accusations are vague and quite frankly not new."

I agree with Mr Smith that one outcome of the Assembly meeting is the clearest of indications that Rafsanjani is now aligning with the Supreme Leader, but that is far from a new development. Rafsanjani's Friday Prayer speech on 17 July did pose challenges to Khamenei, but throughout August and September, the former President has manoeuvred for position by declaring his firm support for the Supreme Leader and "unity".

Put bluntly, if this were an issue of a straightforward chess match of Rafsanjani v. Khamenei, this could be a case of Hashemi offering an honourable draw and moving to the next match alongside, rather than against the Supreme Leader. If that match was against the reformists, then one of the persistent questions of this crisis would have been settled: having raised prospects so high two months ago with his effective declaration that he was with the Green movement's opposition to the current system, Rafsanjani would have walked away from the struggle.

But, as EA readers corrected me many weeks ago, this is not a two-player chess match. There are several sides to the board: the reformists occupy one, and so does the President and his allies. And, after all the head-scratching I've done this week, this feels like a different alignment of players:

Rafsanjani does want to be alongside Khamenei, but the ultimate opponent is Ahmadinejad. To be successful in that contest, it is to Rafsanjani's advantage to keep the other players in the match

Let's put the chess analogy another way: it is the President who has been trying to reduce this conflict to a straight-up, two-sided battle. Mahmoud v. the Greens. The system v. the illegitimate opposition. "Iran" v. the foreigners. Every statement he has made since the 12 June election, beginning with his denigration of the opposition as "dust" points to that simplification.

But, ironically, it was others within the Establishment and not the Green movement who complicated that plan. When the conservative and principlist politicians rebelled against the abuse of detainees and, more specifically, Ahmadinejad's leadership of his Cabinet, another player was at the chessboard. When the Supreme Leader made his limited but clear steps to criticise the President, including the closure of Kahrizak Prison and his insistence on the removal of First Vice President Rahim-Mashai, he had put his own set of pieces in play.

So Ahmadinejad and the Revolutionary Guard have not only had to fight their initial contest with the Green movement, they have to get back to that us v. them showdown. They succeeded, for now, in retiring the conservatives/principlists, but the Supreme Leader posed a trickier chess problem. Move too quickly in a challenge against Khamenei and the entire system of velayat-e-faqih (supreme clerical authority) becomes an issue. And, even if the President may wish to curb that system in practice, he probably does not want to appear to be doing so, for then the symbolic basis of the Islamic Republic since 1979 is exposed.

I have no doubt that Rafsanjani knows this. So this past week, indeed over the past weeks, he made a calculation and decisions to keep the board multi-sided. He did not need to make a high-profile appearance at Qods Day because the Green movement stayed in play with their own momentum of protest. Instead, he could concentrate on keeping the Supreme Leader in the game as an actor who could move against the President as well as the reformists.

And there's more. I think another player is now at the table. If there was a concrete step in the Assembly's general declaration, it was that the criticisms of marjas (the most senior Shi'a clerics) must be heeded, not only in principle but in practice. This does not mean immediate concessions to a Government opponent such as Ayatollah Montazeri who, for all his symbolic resonance with many Iranians, is on the fringe of the main contest. It does mean a recognition and response to the challenges put by other Grand Ayatollahs, including some who have long been seen as "conservative".

Consider two incidents. Less than two months ago, Ahmadinejad's supporters on the Assembly of Experts tried to reduce the chessboard by taking Rafsanjani out of play, with the blundering letter that claimed to be in the name of the Assembly and called for the former President's removal as chairman. Earlier this week it was Rafsanjani demonstrating that he was very much there and very much commanding the attention both of the Government and of its opponents.

But Rafsanjani was absent when the Assembly's statement was read, right? Absolutely, but my initial brow-raising concern, that he had suffered a setback, was replaced by another possibility. Rafsanjani needs his position as chair of the Assembly, but he is not solely reliant upon its members for his influence. Stepping away from the proceedings, he could indicate that he had achieved his main purpose and was now moving to the next steps of his alignment with Khamenei and others.

For consider the second incident. Before Qods Day, Speaker of the House Ali Larijani, apparently carrying messages from Ayatollah Khamenei, met Grand Ayatollahs and other senior clerics. The content of those discussions has not been leaked, but it now appears that Larijani's mission was not to warn the marjas but to seek an accommodation with them. And, if that is the case, who is the accommodation against?

A two-sided chess analogy might say the "Green movement". But some of those marjas are now supportive of the Green movement. And it is those marjas whom Rafsanjani said, only days after the Larijani meeting, are important in this ongoing political battle.

There's an important caveat in this analysis: just because Rafsanjani wants Khamenei in this match, able to move against as well as with Ahmadinejad, does not mean that this is a Supreme Leader on a string. And yesterday, as Khamenei addressed the Assembly, he tacked back to the "sophistication and extensiveness in planning by the enemy in the current situation". Coming weeks after the Supreme Leader had played down the notion of a "velvet revolution" in the post-election conflict, this appears to be Khamenei's own re-alignment with Government propaganda against the Green movement:

The Islamic system has a 30-years experience in confronting different challenges, but, in view of the development in the system and the complexity of its achievements, its opponents' conspiracies and plots have also become more complex. Thus, its diverse aspects must be identified in order to overcome them....

In their soft war, the opponents of the system have made use of an overwhelming amount of propaganda and telecommunications tools to attack the beliefs, the power of discernment, the motivation, and the foundations and pillars of a system and the country.

Khamenei praised the election --- again --- with "a high and unprecedented vote is one of our great strengths". He praised Iran's "solid infrastructure and the country's preparedness for a leap forward, significant scientific progress, the system's 30-year experience, an energetic, educated and self-confident young generation, and the [20-year strategic] plan defining the movement of the country towards its horizons until 2026".

What he did not do, however, was single out the President for exaltation. And that, as Hashemi Rafsanjani listened, leaves open the question: who has aligned with whom against whom?

A rule: the more players in the chess match, the more difficult the situation is for Ahmadinejad, even if he tries to walk away from that match with his "international" appearances. And, to me, it looks like this chessboard expanded, rather than contracted, this week.

The Latest from Iran (24 September): New York is Long Gone

1600 GMT: Leading the Media by the Nose. Continuing on our theme of the Great New York Diversion, considered in this morning's analysis, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has declared in an interview with the Washington Post and Newsweek that he wants talks between Iranian and US experts to allay fears about his country’s nuclear programme: “Why not just let them sit and talk and see what kind of capacity they can build? I think it is a good thing to happen."

Ahmadinejad also said Iran would offer to purchase enriched uranium from the US for medical purposes when Tehran sits down with the "5+1" powers in Turkey  on October 1.

No one in the "Western" media, least of all the Washington Post and Newsweek, seems to have
realised that one of the President's motives for the talks might be the legitimacy that it gives his Government in the current internal crisis.

0900 GMT: Playing "Doctor" in the Cabinet. More fuss over the Minister of Science, whose claims to hold a doctorate from a British university, have come under scrutiny (see previous EA entries). Nature News reports, "Iranian researchers say they are dismayed and angered that a 2009 paper coauthored by Kamran Daneshjou, Iran’s science minister, appears to have plagiarized a 2002 paper published by South Korean researchers."

0645 GMT: Both sides in the post-election conflict are playing up their preferred version of yesterrday's events in New York. Government supporters are hailing President Ahmadinejad's speech to the United Nations, which did not begin until 4 a.m. Tehran time (and also noting tat he refrained from mentioning the Holocaust). The Green movement is effusive over the demonstrations outside the UN and more gatherings planned for today.

But for us, the important political developments are occurring in Iran. There will be more decoding of the signals from the Assembly of Experts, where Hashemi Rafsanjani's opening statement was followed by his non-appearance as the Assembly agreed and presented its final statement. We've attempted to analyse events in the US and in Iran, focusing on the legitimacy of the President, in a separate entry, as well as a quick look at Russia's latest diplomatic manieuvre on Iran's nuclear programme.

Before we leave the circus of Ahmadinejad in New York, a tribute to the most absurd story to accompany the trip. The American CBS News saw significance in "Iran Warns Men not to Sell Women's Undies".

Iran: The (Il)Legitimacy of Ahmadinejad

He came and he's gone. From New York, that is, not from his claimed authority as President of Iran. And after all the built-up drama surrounding his appearance at the United Nations, much of it a pre-scripted sideshow posing as the main act (Israel, the Holocaust, Iran's nuclear programme), what matters is the political situation to which Mahmoud Ahmadinejad returns, not the one he has just left.

This is in no way to denigrate the protestors who turned out yesterday to show the US and the world that Ahmadinejad was not acceptable. They represent the challenge to legitimacy that is at the heart of the conflict in Iran.

The important question was always going to be how many observers recognised that challenge. After all, Iranian state media were always going to ignore the protests in favour of the presentation of Ahmadinejad as international statesman. The postures that fuel the finger-wagging of the "Western" media --- his campaign against Zionism, his questioning of the scientific basis of the Holocaust, his chiding of "imperialism" --- support that portrayal. So this morning Fars News (farsnews.ir) has several articles pointing to Ahmadinejad as the agenda-setter in New York, including one on his six-point plan for global change.

So it is depressing to see that the Los Angeles Times sets aside the issue of legitimacy for "more important" headlines such as "Russia's president pledges to help U.S. nudge Iran on nuclear issue" and "Iran's President Extols Himself and Denounces Israel". It highlights Ahmadinejad's declaration, "[The Iranian voters] entrusted me once more, by a large majority, with this heavy responsibility," and only notes several paragraphs later, "Earlier, outside the United Nations, hundreds of protesters raised green flags -- the color of the opposition movement in Iran -- and signs reading 'Free Iran' as they railed against Ahmadinejad." The New York Times opens with the "thousands of demonstrators" and Ahmadinejad "stoutly defend[ing] his legitimacy. However, it then races to the safer ground of "familiar attacks against the United States and...an oblique rant against Jews", as well as the discussions of "world powers" over Iran's nuclear programme.

Far more important than the game of charades in New York but well beyond the notice of all but Iranian media, a more complex act of political theatre was being played out in Tehran. Having made his opening statement at the Assembly of Experts, Hashemi Rafsanjani was absent from the second day of the session. That enabled the fervent Ahmadinejad supporter, Ahmad Khatami, to read out a statement and claim that Rafsanjani endorsed "every line" of it.

The statement expressed full allegiance to the Supreme Leader --- no surprises there, for the flutter of a challenge to Ayatollah Khamenei's position has now stilled, and Rafsanjani's own strategy is to show undisputed support to bring the Supreme Leader towards his position. More significant was the appreciation of
the Supreme Leader’s “wise policies” in extinguishing the “seditious flames” in recent events. That one-sided view of blame for post-election conflict is at odds with Rafsanjani's more balanced presentation, as is the explicit claim that foreign powers had conspired to overthrow the Islamic system of Iran in recent events.

Most importantly, the Assembly upheld the legitimacy of Ahmadinejad's authority, praising Ayatollah Khamenei for dismissing any notion of fraud in the election and congratulating the President on his second term. The one opening for opponents of that legitimacy, and a more-than-implicit nod to the absent Rafsanjani, was the injunction that Ahmadinejad heed the “critiques of concerned Shiite clerics” as he led the Government.

So the wheel turns once more. The New York distraction is over --- thank goodness. For less than week of Qods Day, Iranian politics has again run the gauntlet of demonstration, resistance, negotiation, and Establishment pushback.

Confrontation or compromise? The question may have been a dramatic device to frame the last 72 hours in the United States. In Iran, that question is not artifice: it is at the heart of the battle for legitimacy that has defined the most important period for the Islamic Republic since 1979.

The Latest from Iran (23 September): New York Sideshow, Tehran Main Event

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1630 GMT: So Twitter Doesn't Matter? The pro-Government newspaper Kayhan is most irritated at a "twitition", promoted via social media, for Mehdi Karroubi to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. This is, apparebtly, the work of agents of the "West" and "Zionists" (and it is in a separate entry on EA).

1500 GMT: Ahmadinejad's away but his Government is still trying to play the enforcer at home. Fereshteh Ghazi reports that Majid Khorami, another member of the reformist Islamic Participation Front and head of Campaign 88 in northern Khorasan province, has been arrested.

1230 GMT: Another example of Red Herring Analysis. Meir Javedanfar is one of the most prominent US-based analysts of Iran, but he also foregoes consideration of the important dynamics inside Iran for the superficial of the President's performance today: "Ahmadinejad's words at the United Nations this week should therefore not be dismissed too quickly. They are a valuable reflection into the thinking of a regime that could soon become a nuclear power. On the contrary, President Ahmadinejad's words should serve as a blueprint for how a nuclear Iran might behave."

1115 GMT: Another Arrest. Confirmation today from various sources that Azar Mansouri, the political deputy to the Secretary General of the reformist Islamic Iran Participation Front, Mohsen Mirdamadi, has been detained. Mirdamadi himself has been under arrest since soon after the 12 June election.

1015 GMT: And here is Ahmadinejad's summary, from the AP interview, of who is to blame for the post-election conflict:

"These were our citizens who were killed, and they were not at fault. Those who were at fault were a group of politicians who basically instigated the events that transpired. I've asked the judicial system ... to find out who the perpetrators of those acts were.

"The government has no role in these events ... Undoubtedly, some foreign governments had a role to play in it ... It is all very regrettable ... Some European and American politicians took a wrong position and basically helped that happen."

1000 GMT: Associated Press has published extracts from their interview with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Its main significance is to bear out what we projected this morning about the media coverage of the President's forthcoming speech. Attention is paid to the Holocaust, Iran's nuclear programme, and the three detained US "hitchhikers". There is only one brief reference to Iran's internal situation.

0600 GMT: At 5 p.m. New York time (2100 GMT) Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will address the United Nations General Assembly.

And to be honest, both for personal interest and for analysis, I really don't care. I can guess most of Ahmadinejad's script, and the way he'll deliver it, and how it will be treated. The one proviso is that, if there are large demonstrations --- involving not pro-Israeli groups but those protesting the internal situation in Iran --- it could dent Ahmadinejad's self-portrayal to his folks back home as confdient and secure leader.

The main action is in Tehran. We've got a separate analysis of Hashemi Rafsanjani's speech yesterday, and we're watching for reactions and manoeuvres.

Meanwhile, Grand Ayatollah Montazeri has linked up publicly with Mir Hossein Mousavi in a new challenge to the Government. A Mousavi statement has been followed by a Montazeri letter denouncing the false confessions of show trials.

One of the detention cases has been highlighted by the blogger Fereshteh Ghazi (iranbaan on Twitter). She notes that fellow journalist Ahmad Zeidabadi is under heavy pressure in Evin Prison to confess. The interrogator has told him: "We have orders to crush you. If you don't work with us we'll do anything we want to you, and if you don't sign the confession papers we'll make you eat them." Zeidabadi's wife said that the interrogator has severely beaten her husband.

One of Zeidabadi's charges is that in an open letter to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, he called him the "Leader" and not "Supreme" Leader. The interrogators have told Zeidabadi to apologise to Khamenei.

Iran: Rafsanjani Seizes the Initiative

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I got it wrong. Writing on a train to Edinburgh and relying on a shaky translation, I updated yesterday that Hashemi Rafsanjani's address at the Assembly of Experts had been clever but cautious. With an emphasis on unity, an alignment with the Supreme Leader, and a call for resolution within the system, he had not made a direct challenge to the Government.

Wrong.

Fortunately EA's Mr Johnson, with a thorough and incisive translation of the speech, corrected my reading in a later update and identified Rafsanjani's very direct message to President Ahmadinejad and his allies. Put not so cleverly and carefully, it is this. Mr President, it is time for you to compromise, especially with the senior clerics, in a process overseen by the Supreme Leader. Doing so, you will acknowledge where the final authority lies in the Islamic Republic: with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, backed by his clerical experts, and not with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Doing so, you will acknowledge that your direction and your officials are responsible for post-election abuses which must be punished and redressed.

Several important caveats to this message should be noted. This does not mean that Hashemi Rafsanjani is in step with the Green movement. At no point yesterday, as far as I know, did he acknowledge their presence. The Qods Day demonstrations had been of the Iranian people showing their determined defense of the cause of Palestine. Mehdi Karroubi's letter was never cited as the source of Rafsanjani's knowledge of abuses. Only the Supreme Leader and the marjas (the most senior of clerics) were identified --- Khamenei explicitly, the marjas implicitly --- as the defenders of justice. And Rafsanjani always balanced his charges of crimes and abuses with the general invocation that they had been committed by all sides in the conflict, not just by the security forces and Government officials. Rafsanjani does not walk in step with the Green movement but their paths converge when it comes to the desire to curb Ahmadinejad.



And that leads to the second caveat: although Rafsanjani never said so, the opposition opened up the space and thus made it possible for him to make his challenge. In particular, Rafsanjani needs the demonstration on Qods Day that many Iranian people were not only still angry with the President, still insistent on changes in the system, but also ready to take to the streets to give political substance to their feelings. In retrospect, that seems to be the reason why the former President laid low on Friday, watching, wating, and calculating, and then made his appearance (which, inevitably, would be in the vicinity of President Ahmadinejad but, now it is clear, not alongside him) at the Supreme Leader's end-of-Ramadan speech. Rafsanjani had some security in the criticism of the Government by senior clerics, many of whom were in the Assembly yesterday, but even those individuals might be picked off by the Ahmadinejad forces with their relatives arrested and their reputations slandered. After Friday, however, he had the security of knowing that, if the Government persisted, so would mass opposition by the Green movement. Resistance would not be broken. And he had also had the security of the Supreme Leader's Sunday address. For Khamenei had said to the President and the Revolutionary Guard, in his directive that in-court confessions could not be used against any third party, that Rafsanjani's family were immune from the charges in the Tehran trials.

A third caveat is essential, however. Rafsanjani did not call and will not call, even in code, for the dismissal of Ahmadinejad. That moment, if it ever existed, passed long ago with the affirmation of the Supreme Leader that the 12 June election result would stand.

No, Ahmadinejad can still be top political dog. But Rafsanjani is asking that he be put in the doghouse and on a firm leash.

This leads to an irony which is not an irony. The still-loose President was on his way to New York when Rafsanjani made his speech challenging that President's authority. A far from ironic moment, however, because Rafsanjani had undoubtedly made another calculation. It is not just that Ahmadinejad is out of the country but that his rhetoric will be directed at external issues such as the nuclear programme and Irna's leadership in causes such as the campaign such as Zionism.

Those issues are secondary --- although almost all in the "Western" media will have no comprehension of this --- to the internal matters put forward by Rafsanjani yesterday. So, once more as with the 17 July Friday Prayer address, he has the initiative.

Here is the question. Will the Supreme Leader, who opened up the door to Rafsanjani's political re-entry, now accompany him in that initiative?