How Iran will choose its next supreme leader
Arash Karami/Al-Monitor/December 15/15
The election for the Assembly of Experts, a body of 86 Islamic theologians who are tasked with electing the supreme leader of Iran, rarely receives the attention and turnout of presidential elections. However, given their eight-year term limits and the current supreme leader’s age, the new body elected February 2016 may ultimately decide the most significant position within the Islamic Republic of Iran. Most Iranian politicians rarely discuss who will take over for the still relatively healthy and highly active 76-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei after his passing. Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a member of the current Assembly of Experts and also a candidate in the upcoming elections, broke this trend by announcing that the assembly has formed a committee to review the future supreme leader. In an interview with Iranian Labor News Agency (ILNA), Rafsanjani said, “When it is decided that the supreme leader will be changed, or not be here and for someone else to come, once again a great task must be undertaken.”
Rafsanjani perhaps played the single most important role in pushing for Khamenei’s election as supreme leader in 1989 by arguing that former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was in favor of his candidacy. Rafsanjani continued, “Of course, they are preparing and researching and have put together a group who are reviewing individuals so that those who have the qualifications, if later there is an event, they could put them forward for a vote. This is the main work of the [Assembly of] Experts.”
This isn’t the first time that Rafsanjani, who is also the head of the Expediency Council, has discussed the fate of the supreme leader position after Khamenei. In February, Rafsanjani said that if an appropriate individual was not found to take over as supreme leader, the Assembly of Experts may appoint a leadership council. During the ILNA interview, Rafsanjani said that according to the constitution before it was amended, after Khomeini’s passing, the Assembly of Experts had originally wanted to create a leadership council and Khamenei was one of three individuals on the council. Though he added that Khomeini himself had verbally spoken out against a council.
Rafsanjani also created a stir talking about the supervisory roles of the Assembly of Experts over the supreme leader and the institutions that operate under him. While Rafsanjani said that a special commission of the Assembly of Experts compiles reports to supervise these institutions, he believes that more could be done. Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani, the head of the judiciary, without mentioning Rafsanjani’s name, criticized the media’s publication of “baseless talk about the Assembly of Experts supervising the supreme leader and the institutions that operate under him.” He added that some individuals are presenting their “hopes and expectations” and trying to connect it to the constitution.Larijani said that the Assembly of Experts only has the responsibility to decide if an individual has the correct criteria to be the supreme leader or not, and the issue of supervision is an entirely different category.
Rafsanjani certainly has a knack for discussing controversial topics and creating a stir ahead of elections in which he hopes that he and his allies will come to dominate. High election turnouts in Iran have typically favored Reformists and moderates. Regardless of the makeup of the next Assembly of Experts, it is likely that a number of powerful institutions and individuals in Iran will wield considerable influence over the assembly’s decision-making process.
Khamenei’s strategy puts US ‘Trojan horse’ out to pasture
Ali Hashem/Al-Monitor/December 15/15
When Iran and the six world powers announced July 14 they had reached a nuclear agreement, those advocating for better relations between the United States and Iran were sure that further steps were imminent — steps that might even have paved the way in the near future for an American ambassador in Iran.With news that the “Death to America” graffiti had been removed from the walls of the former US Embassy in Tehran, the “new era” of relations was the topic of discussion among both supporters and opponents of the nuclear deal, both inside and outside Iran. It was as if the world was changing without any resistance. Yet, as it has turned out, that possibility was too good to be true.
Before the deal and amid its announcement in Vienna, the man who spoke the least was Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He drew his red lines ahead of the negotiations and entered a silent mode until everything was over. The cleric even kept his distance after the deal. Indeed, though he gave several speeches in the ensuing months, he never offered a clear stance on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) until Oct. 21, when he endorsed the deal, cautiously saying that its implementation should be “tightly controlled and monitored” because of its “ambiguities.” He said a lack of tight control “could bring significant damage for the present and the future of the country.” Ayatollah Khamenei’s main concern was not the deal itself, but its implications for the country, specifically regarding relations with the United States — the country regarded by Tehran hard-liners as the main enemy of the Islamic Revolution and its values, the “Great Satan” that bears responsibility for all the evil in the world.
In Iran, there is a quiet but ongoing and clear struggle between the executive branch and the ideologues; this isn’t a secret. Yet, the struggle has never been over the ends but rather the means, and so the confrontations haven’t seriously affected the country’s stability. The executive branch wants to serve the Islamic Republic’s causes with delicate tools, while the ideologues believe nothing is as efficient as radical steps. For the latter, it’s either black or white, with no room for gray.
The ideologues, armed with the blessing of Ayatollah Khamenei, were seriously concerned that any American influence would affect the revolutionary zeal inside the country. This fear prompted those with concerns to join forces and look for ways to confront the threat. Some took to the streets of Tehran and gathered for days in front of the parliament building while lawmakers were discussing the JCPOA, protesting what they called “the American Trojan horse to infiltrate Iran.” On the other hand, right-wing parliamentarians grilled the chief nuclear negotiator, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, and his team even during the session when parliament ultimately approved the JCPOA. This marked the beginning of the pre-emptive assault on any possible thoughts about normalizing ties with the United States.
Ayatollah Khamenei has made it clear on several occasions that there will be no further talks with the United States regarding any other issues. He blamed “careless or simple-minded people who do not understand the facts” for Iran’s “problems.” He said that such people, presumably those advocating for relations with the United States, are a small minority. Indeed, Ayatollah Khamenei waited until the US Senate was no longer able to stop the JCPOA and then clearly outlined what he thought about the deal’s possible implications. It was obvious that he wanted the benefits, the meat of the deal, and waited until it seemed safe to throw out the bones, burying any hopes for improved relations. And he did so at the most opportune time for the Iranians, as serious concerns about the Islamic State were growing within Iranian society, and anti-Iranian rhetoric was spreading in the region, mainly in countries seen as close US allies.
The ideologues in Iran succeeded in restricting the path of the nuclear deal without affecting public opinion. In the month before the JCPOA was struck, any attempt to scuttle the deal or display dismay over Iranian-US engagement during the negotiations could have caused serious problems in Iran. People were hoping the negotiations would result in sanctions being lifted; therefore, it seemed unwise to cause waves, especially since the problem wasn’t with the deal itself but rather its implications. Divisions within Iran over such an issue could have led to serious rifts, maybe similar to those that appeared amid the disputed 2009 presidential election. Now that the country is about to benefit from the deal and take part in the reshaping of the new map of the region, it is interesting to study the role each wing of Iranian politics played to help reach the JCPOA without heavy costs.
Many give credit to two charismatic people who share the admiration of the Iranian public yet who might have no chemistry between them: Zarif on one side, and Quds Force Commander Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani on the other. Zarif and Soleimani are two contradictory characters, given their tactics. But Soleimani helped Zarif in the nuclear negotiations by highlighting Iran’s strength on the ground, while Iran’s chief diplomat presented the major general with a deal that gave Tehran a place in the talks over Syria in Vienna, which is, in effect, international recognition of the Islamic Republic’s role in the region. The different political wings in Iran might seem conflicting, yet the opposite colors give contrast to a complex rug.
