President vs. Rahbar

Iran is experiencing a tough administrative war between its temporal leader, President Ahmadinejad, and its spiritual leader (rahbar) Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. And its personnel.

Duality is a peculiarity of the Iranian government system that appeared after the revolution of 1979 and the dethroning of the shah. On the one hand, executive power belongs to the temporal leader — the president who is elected by direct suffrage in general elections. On the other hand, the most important decisions should be approved by the spiritual leader, whose decisions are mandatory and are not debated.

As long as there was an agreement between rahbar and president, this complicated and somewhat contradictory system of government worked. Until recently there was no direct interference of Ayatollah Khamenei into the affairs of state governance. He considered it better to act through the parliament, which was often opposed to President Ahmadinejad. The contradiction with the parliament was accompanied by a struggle against the former president of the country, Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. It ended in removing the latter from the post of the head of the Assembly of Experts. The president took it as a serious consolidation of his position.

As a result, Ahmadinejad decided to bring the Foreign Ministry under complete control. In mid-December 2010, during an official visit to Senegal, Manouchehr Mottaki, the foreign minister loyal to the spiritual leader, was unexpectedly removed and Ali Akbar Salehi, the Iranian Representative in the International Atomic Energy Agency, was appointed in his place. The president’s wish to consolidate his power in the government and thus extend his authority to the detriment of the supreme power of Ayatollah Khamenei was obvious. He ignored the disapproving statements of the latter regarding such a personnel policy.

This unstable balance might have lasted somewhat longer, but the date of the parliamentary elections is approaching, with presidential elections set for 2013. Given the worsening internal situation and constant actions of the temporal opposition, conservative and fundamentalist circles in the top clergy started feeling quite understandable fears. The point is that Ayatollah Khamenei is of a very old age, and some time ago his health was also a concern to many. A new personnel front could be created if the ayatollah left the post.

The rahbar and his environment, as well as very influential conservative circles, were not satisfied with the president’s consolidation of power. “Young hawks” led by the “hot shot” Ahmadinejad, a son of an ordinary smith, clearly strived to gain power to ensure more beneficial positions during the parliamentary elections. This would then increase his chances during the presidential elections. Moreover, the current president will not participate in them, and time was needed to promote his successor.

The struggle became open and somewhat impudent after the forced resignation of Heydar Moslehi from the post of the head of the Ministry of Information, when Ahmadinejad officially accepted his resignation. To ensure the victory of his protege during the presidential elections, it was very important for the president to gain the unreserved support of this key ministry.

Experts suppose that this resignation could be initiated by the head of the presidential administration Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, who is a relative and a close friend of Ahmadinejad (one of his daughters is married to the president’s son). The rahbar decided it was too much. The response was prompt.

In just a few hours the Iranian agencies Fars, ISNA and Mehr informed that Ayatollah Khamenei refused to approve the resignation of Heydar Moslehi. And then by his resolution the ayatollah returned the minister to his post, while publicly humiliating the president at this: the rahbar made public a letter addressed to Moslehi, not Ahmadinejad, about returning to the post. The action of Ayatollah Khamenei caught the president off guard, ruining his expectations for the full subordination of leading ministries. In addition to this, over two thirds of the Iranian parliament warned President Ahmadinejad that the latter cannot oppose the spiritual leader, since he has a final say in state affairs. And the Majlis already gathered 90 signatures of deputies about the initiation of the president’s impeachment. In response, as the British newspaper The Guardian writes, Ahmadinejad demonstratively doesn’t attend the sitting of the government and refuses to go to the religious center of Iran – the city of Qom.

The conflict is growing; the Iranian newspaper Etedaal reported on the arrest of 25 employees of the Iranian president, in particular, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, who was dismissed a few days earlier. Other sources indicate that there were fewer arrests. The Guardian, referring to the Iranian website Ayandeh, writes that the officials were accused of connections with genies. The chief prosecutor of Tehran Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi confirmed that the arrested official of the administration was accused of sorcery. According to sharia’s law, this is punished by beheading.

The aggravation of internal struggle in Iran is connected with the division of the power between young nationalists headed by Ahmadinejad and the more aged leadership of the clergy. Any result of this confrontation will mean more control over the country’s life. There will be no considerable changes in foreign policy. The confrontation with both the West and Arabian countries of the Persian Gulf will only increase. Very hot conflicts are possible here. These may include third countries, as it was already the case in Syria.

Earlier the conflict of the temporal and spiritual branches of the government was ended in the failure of the former. After all, the rahbar can simply remove president from power by his decree. This already happened in the past. However, from all appearances, the clergy cannot or doesn’t want to provoke this exacerbation at present. This threatens with a serious destabilization of the situation in the country. The ayatollahs seem ready to agree to a restriction of the president’s powers. The question remains: Where is the limit of this restriction?