We
all know that the present Iranian regime systematically uses political
expediency to pursue its monopolization of power. But how much is known of the
reformists' own political expediency, and at what cost are they hidden from
public view? At great cost, if we consider the current struggles of the Green
Movement to disentangle itself from the all-powerful authority of the Supreme
Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei. What if it were more widely known, for example,
that he had in effect become leader not through legitimate means but by a
forged letter, written supposedly by the previous leader, Khomeini, just before
his death? According to the Iranian constitution, the country's supreme leader
had to be a grand ayatollah, marja. Khamenei was not even an ayatollah. Before
the revolution, he made a living through preaching (rozeh khaani), which even
the least educated clergy may do.
Khamenei
was never meant to be leader. The grand ayatollah Montazeri had already been
elected to succeed Khomeini by the Council of Experts, which was responsible
for the succession. But before he could take office he was deposed for his role
in exposing the Irangate scandal, which led to the execution of his son in law,
and exposing the massacre of political prisoners in 1988. The removal of the
only candidate with grand ayatollah status created a vacuum of leadership that
had to be filled immediately. The Council of Experts hastily considered various
scenarios for choosing the next leaders (a council of initially three, and then
five), but none were acceptable. Suddenly, Rafsanjai surprised the Council by
introducing a letter from Khomeini, in which he had stated that the next leader
need not be a grand ayatollah.
This
letter removed the main obstacle preventing Rafsanjani from realizing his plan
to become the strong man of Iran. This was to endorse Khamenei, whom he
considered to be a weak character, as supreme leader. Then, after removing the
post of the premiership, he would relegate its power to the president and
extend the power of this role, which was already subordinate to Khamenei's
reign. It worked. After two statements from Khomeini in support of Khamenei,
the Council of Experts elected him as the supreme leader.
But
the surprise appearance of this letter, out of nowhere and in such little time,
raised the suspicions of the erstwhile president, A.H. Banisadr. He provided
two forensic handwriting experts with a few of Khomeini's letters, letters from
Khomeini's son that he received during his presidency, and the letter allegedly
from Khomeini. The experts concluded that the letter read by Rafsanjani in the
Assembly of Experts had been written by someone nearly 30 years younger than
Khomeini, and most probably by his son. Grand ayatollah Montazeri also stated
in a later memoir that Ahmad Khomeini used to forge his father's handwriting.
Based
on these findings, Le Monde published an article (29/6/1989) which argued that
Khamenei had become leader through a forged letter from Khomeini. The Iranian
Embassy in France protested vehemently against its publication, and in
response, Le Monde challenged the embassy to take the paper to the court with
counter-evidence The embassy never took up the challenge.
This
information has been available for more than twenty years. Why, then, has the
opposition so rarely, if ever, mentioned or referred to it, let alone inform
Iranians of such an immensely important fact? The explanation should be sought
in the reformist nature of the opposition at its elite levels, which is
precisely where we can identify the Achilles heel of the Green Movement. Many
of its reformist leaders know that if they make this knowledge public, they
will be unable to justify their acceptance of Khamenei's authority. They thus
share an interest with Iran's ruling mafia in preventing this knowledge from
becoming public information.
The
result is a growing frustration of the movement at a mass level, which was
partly responsible for its drastic slowdown, before its re-energization as a
result of the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt. After so much bloodshed and
mass arrests, many people are unwilling to risk of arrest, torture or execution
in exchange for the hope of only minor changes to the social system, while
Khamenei remains supreme leader and the political structures remain intact. The
slogans in recent demonstrations, in which the youth are asking for Khamenei to
follow the destiny of Bin Ali of Tunisia and Mubarak of Egypt, only indicate
the growing chasm between the rank and file of the movement and its leadership,
which is committed to reform.
The
movement thus far suffers from an identity crisis for some obvious reasons.
First, despite their hardship and recent arrests, the symbolic leaders of the
Green Movement, Mousavi and Karroubi, have still trapped themselves within
political conveniences. Second, before the explosion of the revolutions in the
Arab countries, the youth in Iran have succumbed to a fear of
"committing" another revolution, and hence fear what might happen if
the regime collapses (a fear which has been taught to them by reformist
intellectuals). Finally, as the result of censorship, the movement has yet
failed to identify a democratic and independent political alternative which
challenges the regime in its totality. So long as these things do not change,
the failing and fragmented regime will continue to inflict misery on the lives
of Iranians and keep the country at the sharp edge of domestic and
international crisis.
هیچ نظری موجود نیست:
ارسال یک نظر