Iran as a Solution Rather Than a Problem: The Iranian Politics of Reform

Transcription

1 Social Change and Dissent in Iran Edited by Mary Ellen Connell Washington, DC: The CNA Center for Strategic Studies 2003 Iran as a Solution Rather Than a Problem: The Iranian Politics of Reform Prof. Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi* Department of Sociology Georgia State University This article discusses the politics of reform in Iran in the context of U.S.-Iran relationship. It argues that the postrevolutionary state in Iran has gone through three Republics each of which with distinct political and ideological agenda. The article demonstrates that in each period alliances were made between different state and civil society actors which defy the commonplace reformist versus conservative dichotomy. What can emerge as a democratic alternative in Iran under the Islamic Republic would be based on a broad coalition of forces from both reformist and conservative camps. In order to facilitate a democratic change, the United States need to acknowledge the diversity of Iranian polity and follow a policy of constructive engagement with the Islamic Republic in its totality. Iran is emerging as the next target of the Bush administration s war on terror. Since the end of Saddam Hussein s regime, the administration has begun a concerted campaign against the Islamic Republic for their alleged pursuit of nuclear weapons and harboring fugitive members of al-qaeda leadership. The White House is determined to turn regime change in Iran into the next pivotal moment in its ongoing war against global terrorism, either by a full military conflict or by destabilizing he regime with the support of expatriate opposition groups. Although it does not appear that the United States have the military capability to launch a full-scale invasion of another Middle Eastern country, the administration s use of these threats and its hostile political rhetoric against the Islamic Republic has strengthened the same undemocratic elements which it wishes to contain. In the last ten years Iran has enjoyed a burgeoning reform movement manifested both in a genuine factional state politics and in a growing institutions of civil society. Although social change in Iran has faced impediments from within and without and has been slow in realizing its objectives, this process promises to be sustained and deliberate. What distinguishes the Iranian experience from regimes such as Saddam Hussein s Iraq is that the Islamic Republic has shown that it has the capacity to perpetuate reform from within. Indeed, a strong reform movement in Iran may offer the best solution for the stability of the region and a model for democratic governance in Islamic countries. The idea that the Islamic Republic of Iran has the greatest potential for

2 Politics of Reform 13 offering a stabilizing force in the region, one which will not necessarily undermine American and European interests, appears to be in direct conflict with the commonplace position in Washington. However, in order to appreciate this somewhat counterintuitive assertion, one needs to appreciate the Iranian situation in its specific cultural, historical, and political circumstances. Only in such a specific context may we develop an understanding of contemporary Iranian politics beyond a crude religio-political rhetoric of good and evil. IRAN Population 34M 64M Illiteracy rate 52% (2 to 1 women to men ratio) 17% (4% under the age of 18) Average income $100 (per month) $60.5 (per month) Exchange Rate 70 (rials) to 1 ($) 8,000 to 1 Total university graduates 440, Million Unemployment Licensed Newspapers 2.9% % Starting 87- Ending 48 No. of mosques in Tehran 1,800 2,300 Status of Women No mandatory dress codes. Equal rights under the criminal and family law. 2 to 1 Illiteracy rate compared with men. Mandatory hijab. Loss of equal rights in inheritance, family, and criminal law. 55% percent of all incoming university students. 15% workforce. International film awards ( ) TABLE 1. Statistical Comparison of Socio-Economic Condition in Iran Sources: Haleh Anvari, Guardian, September 25, 2001 & Statistical Center of Iran ( By all accounts, the Iranian revolution remains an unfinished project. The intensity of factionalism in Iranian state politics, in addition to ongoing friction between

3 Politics of Reform 14 the state and civil society in the last decade, is reflected in various domains of social and political life in Iran. While influential factions of the clergy have hampered the expansion of democratic institutions (free press, electoral politics, civil liberties), at the same time, their efforts to establish a theocratic totalitarianism in Iran have also failed. The Iranian regime is neither theocratic nor totalitarian. It is not theocratic for it does follow a constitution, (albeit with contradictory assertions about the institutional sources of power,) and in many limited ways it draws its legitimacy from a popular political process. It cannot be regarded as a totalitarian regime, because the genuinely competing interests within the polity do not allow one faction to dominate all of the instruments of power. A glance at a statistical depiction of changes in the last 25 years highlights Iran as a transforming society with deeply contradictory elements (see table 1). For example, while Iran has one of the most vibrant press media in the region, incomparable to the situation under the Shah, it also has one of the most rigorously constraining judicial bodies, which incessantly limit the freedom of the press. While Iran has the highest number of female university students in the region (or perhaps in the world with 55% women among incoming students in 2001), women occupy only 15-20% of all jobs in the country. Although women's participation in politics and their role in civic associations is comparable to men, they still lack the recognition of their basic rights, particularly in family and criminal law. This picture demonstrates the experience of an emerging democratic society with competing social and political forces that, on the one hand, intend to accelerate democratization, and on the other, to contain and eventually repress it. In this essay, I shall try to demonstrate some of the inherent complexities of the Iranian political system. In particular how the post-revolutionary regime has shown flexibility as well as rigidity in accepting or rejecting democratic institutional changes. In the last quarter century, Iran has gone through three Republics, à la French Revolution, each of which assumed power with a particular agenda and a dominant ideology. The First Republic, "State-Building," dates from 1979 to 1989; Second Republic, "Institutionalizing," dates from 1989 to 1997; and finally the Third Republic, "Transforming," dates from 1997 to present. Period Doctrine Main Objective 1 st Republic Ideological State-Building 2 nd Republic Pragmatic Institutionalizing 3 rd Republic 1997-Present Transformationist Building Civil Society Table 2. Iran s three Republics

4 Politics of Reform 15 These Republics by no means constitute a rupture in the general progression of the post-revolutionary regime, and indeed they emerged to secure the continuity of the Islamic regime. However, each Republic assumed power with distinctive ideological commitments and a specific political agenda which, in significant ways contradicted its predecessor s objectives. The First Republic (1979 to 1989) was characterized by the project of postrevolutionary state-building led by the leader of the revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini. State-building is indeed a euphemistic conception of brutal processes through which the state consolidated its power by eliminating and delegitimizing competing groups. During these years, between fifty to seventy thousand people were executed in summary trials, tens of thousands were tortured and imprisoned under inhumane conditions, and more than one million Iranians were exiled. Khomeini and his allies ridiculed liberal nationalists for their western propensities. The Islamists and the Left accused them of betraying the anti-western core of the revolution by refusing to be committed to an emerging Islamic political lexicon, and for resisting revolutionary actions such as economic nationalization and support for anti-imperialist and Islamic revolutionary movements around the globe. The takeover of the American embassy in Tehran in 1979 culminated the militants initial attempt to consolidate power. The seizure of the embassy served two purposes for the new regime: First: it forced the liberal provisional government of the first prime- minister, Mehdi Bazargan, to resign; second: it defused the secular left's critique of the clergy as too accommodating to western powers. It is important here to make a crucial distinction between the embassy take-over and the hostage crisis. Rather than a carefully designed confrontation with the United States, the take over of the American Embassy in Tehran was primarily motivated by domestic considerations of state-building. The hostage crisis, at least in its 444-day version, was an unintended consequence of the invasion. It put an unanticipated onus on the militant Muslim students' shoulders. The students had originally intended to salvage the revolution from secular leftist competition, as well as what they regarded as the liberals' incompetence. However, their actions made the new regime vulnerable to American military retaliation and economic embargo. In effect, the hostage crisis and later Iraqi aggression conditioned the process of state-building in Iran, thereby opening the path for repression. The brutality of state-building intensified when the Left loyal oppositions, who contributed to the elimination of the liberal faction, withdrew their support and began to organize against the Islamist regime. In 1981, the new regime initiated an atrocious campaign of executions, which by the mid-1980s assured the monopolization of the state power in the hands of a governing elite who were unified around their commitment to the principle of velayat-e faqih, or the rule of the jurisprudent. Before Ayatollah Khomeini's death, and the end of Iran-Iraq war in 1988, the Islamic republic enjoyed relative stability. It was free from serious internal challenges; its principal foreign military threat was kept at bay. Before his death, Ayatollah Khomeini set the stage for the emergence of the Second Republic. The Second Republic ( ) is primarily associated with the two-term presidency of Hojjat al-islam Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. In a decree issued in 1987,

5 Politics of Reform 16 Ayatollah Khomeini laid out the main ideological foundations of this new stateformation. (Incidentally, he issued this decree against President Hojjat al-islam Khamenei, who would later succeeded Khomeini.) In a pragmatic move based on the old Shi'ite notion of maslaha (expediency), Khomeini pronounced that the Islamic government (the elected body) "was the most important of the divine commandments and has primacy over all derivative divine commandments [...] even over prayer, fasting, and pilgrimage to Mecca." Furthermore, he declared that, "In order to build a road, the state is justified in demolishing a mosque." With these words, Khomeini intended to counter the dogmatic tendencies within the regime, prominently represented by the Guardian Council, the responsibility of which was to determine the constitutionality of legislations passed by the majlis (the Iranian Parliament). In order to advance his pragmatic approach to the interests of the Islamic State, and in order to contain the veto power of the conservatives of the Guardian Council, in 1988, Khomeini ordered the establishment of Shura-ye Tashkhis-e Maslahat-e Nizam (Council for the Expediency Discernment of the [Islamic] Regime, known as the Expediency Council). The Expediency Council initially consisted of thirteen members of the majlis, the executive branch of the government, and the Guardian Council. After the establishment of the Expediency Council, the Head of the Guardian Council, Ayatollah Safi, presented his resignation to Ayatollah Khomeini. In his letter of resignation, Safi expressed his dissatisfaction with the idea of prioritizing the expediency of the Islamic state over the shari'ah, and declared that he could not fulfill his duties under such a pretense. Ayatollah Safi's resignation reflected the most profound doctrinal differences within the Islamic Republic; it was a turning point in the institutional separation of religion and state. Khomeini's institutionalization of the means of arbitration between different governing factions was designed in anticipation of his eventual death, which happened in June He was conscious of the crisis that might emerge in the absence of his charismatic authority. Therefore, Khomeini problematized what had heretofore been regarded as Islamically-sanctioned practice in jurisprudence and turned it into a negotiated matter that would be fought over in the Expediency Council. With Khomeini's death, the absolute political authority of the faqih was gone. The Second Republic was officially inaugurated with the ascension of Hojjat al- Islam Khamenei to the office of vali-e faqih, and the subsequent election of Rafsanjani to the presidency. Because Khomeini s religious credentials had been impeccable, he could successfully advocate the primacy of state needs over religious injunctions. Unlike Khomeini whose authority was discretionary and pragmatic, his successor, Khamene i could not legitimate the political needs of the Islamic state in his person. He had neither the charisma nor the religious stature to forge political consensus. Therefore, in the place of the authoritative discretionary of power of Khomeini, Rafsanjani pushed through a constitutional amendment in order to legitimate the political authority of the office of the leader. While Rafsanjani was aware that this would limit the powers of the office of the presidency, since he played a key role in the transfer of power to Khamenei, he was confident that the change would not limit the powers of his administration.

6 Politics of Reform 17 First Republic ( ) Main Actors Clerical Establishment: Ayatollah Khomeini (Leader) Liberals: Mehdi Bazargan (Provincial Prime-Minister) Secular Left and Mojahedin Main Events Invasion of American Embassy Iran-Iraq War Civil war in Kurdistan Executions and exiles Complete suppression of dissent Second Republic ( ) The President: Rafsanjani The leader: Khamenei The emerging dissident intelligentsia. New social movements (youth & women) Constitutional Amendments. Privatization Efforts. Emerging civil society Third Republic (1997-Present) The Reformists: President Khatami Abolitionists - Transformationist Traditionalists & Pragmatist Alliance: The Judiciary / security forces Office of the Leader The Guardian Council The Expediency Council Student and Women s movements election and the peaceful transfer of power to the loyal opposition candidate. Student riots of Burgeoning of new papers and the struggle to keep them open. Stalemate of the reform. September 11, 2001 and American Threats. Table 3. Main actors and the main events during each Republic

7 Politics of Reform 18 In his inaugural address, Rafsanjani emphasized that with his presidency the revolution has entered a "reconstruction phase." The country, he said, needed to recover from the economic devastation caused by the eight-year war with Iraq, America's embargo, and the international isolation following the Islamic revolution. In his first term, the revolutionary rhetoric of the redistribution of wealth and social justice disappeared from Rafsanjani's political lexicon. Instead, he advocated the notion of the Islamic virtues of prosperity and economic success. Rafsanjani intended to dilute the revolutionary core of the regime with a pragmatic policy that would encourage domestic as well as foreign investment in Iran. He attracted many technocrats to his administration and embarked on an economic reform program, albeit without a corresponding political reform. Not only did Rafsanjani use the power of his office to realize his agenda, he also encouraged the organization of an emerging technocratic intelligentsia whose main goal was to establish support in civil society for his agenda. To a great extent, Rafsanjani played an important role in moving Iran away from its Jacobin period of state-building, and ushering in an era in when the objectives of the revolution could be discussed again without the threats of blood and iron. The Third Republic was by no means the inevitable result of the Second. Indeed, the Third Republic emerged unexpectedly as a response to the Second Republic's inability, or unwillingness, to engage institutions of civil society in its proposed agenda of reconstruction. In 1997, Mohammad Khatami defeated Nateq Nuri, the status quo candidate, with close to 70% of the popular vote. More than 85% of eligible voters participated in the presidential election to send Khatami, who had held the insignificant position of the Head of the National Library, to the office of the Presidency. Khatami won the election by promising to strengthen the foundations of civil society by making the state and all ruling factions accountable to the constitution and to popular demands. Khatami s stunning victory was made possible by a strong coalition of women and youth movements. These groups were mobilized in student and professional associations and neighborhood organizations. The strength of this movement became evident when Khatami's campaign offices were closed in Tehran only a week prior to election day. In two days after the closure, women's organizations mobilized more than 250,000 women to march on the streets of Tehran in support of his candidacy. University students, although not great in numbers, also played a crucial role in mobilizing the populace to participate in the election. Students set up campaign offices even in rural and remote areas of the country in order to assure a mass participation and a landslide victory for Khatami. In addition to popular movements, the reform was also supported and envisioned by an emerging class of Muslim intellectuals who advocate a more hermeneutical and open interpretation of Islam. These developments have taken theological debates and issues of jurisprudence out of the closed quarters of seminaries into a large public sphere of lay men and women. Not only did this "Reformation" movement facilitate the emergence of the Third Republic, it also represents an unprecedented reflective understanding of Islam and its institutional presence in Iranian society. Iranians have never before been so deeply and so widely engaged in debates about democracy and culturally specific issues of rights. It is a rare occurrence that the controversial issues of hermeneutics profoundly and directly impact the everyday life of

8 Politics of Reform 19 a nation. Iran is passing through such a historical moment. From the trial of a newspaper editor to custody battles in family court, from regulations of parliamentary elections to gender-segregated bus seats, all have become issues for Qur'anic exegesis and competing renditions of the Shari'ah (the Islamic penal and civil law). One should not overlook the significance of the fact that the leaders of the Second Republic conceded their defeat and handed over the office of the Presidency to the candidate of the loyal opposition. At the time, in 1996, the reconstructionists of the Second Republic were considering a referendum for a constitutional amendment to allow Rafsanjani to run for the third term, and in effect, turn himself into another Middle Eastern President-for-Life. But the decision to abandon the project shows that the regime was willing and flexible enough to absorb the shocks of change of power in the hands of competing factions. It also demonstrates that the popular legitimacy of the regime continues to be a foundational element of the Islamic Republic. Khatami s Third Republic set out to transform the regime from within by (1) increasing the power of the Office of the President; (2) making the Leader (vali faqihi) accountable to law and the constitution; (3) containing the extra-judicial and arbitrary powers of rogue elements within the security forces (with close ties to the Ministry of Information and the Judiciary); (4) implementing more permissive Islamic codes of ethics and behavior in the public sphere; and (5) advocating equal rights for men and women under family and criminal law. The first two years of the Third Republic saw a burgeoning of new print media and the formation of interest groups in civil society. The promising first two years encouraged more participation in the electoral process and in both municipal and majlis elections of 1999 and 2000, respectively, close to 75% of the eligible voters cast their ballots. The Third Republic demonstrated that the frictions inside the regime are genuine, and participatory politics remains an instrument for solving social problems in the country. As the set backs of the last two years indicate, reform in Iran will not follow a linear progressive path. The traditionalist clerical establishment has also proven that it still controls the main instruments of power and is not reluctant to use its authority to safeguard the theocratic elements of the Islamic regime. Their ardent resistance to change has practically stalled reform in the last two years and has resulted in a political apathy among Iranian voting population. Only 35% of the eligible voters cast their votes in the last municipal elections in Iran, and consequently the conservatives won the majority of sits in Tehran City Council. Reformists versus Conservatives Today, the dichotomy between reformists and conservatives does not capture the essence of factional politics in Iran. Neither of these camps is homogenous. There are actors in each camp that are closer to others in the opposite group than some elements in their own. Each of these factions contains two divisions within themselves. Among the reformists there are what I call "accommodationists" versus "abolitionists," and in the conservative coalition there are "concessionist" and "autocratic abolitionists." The abolitionist faction among reformists is gaining popular support, as electoral participatory politics gradually lose its significance. With the current stalemate in the reform movement, the transformationist agenda of President Khatami is increasingly incapacitated. With losing hope for the possibility of the reinvention of the Islamic

9 Politics of Reform 20 Republic based on the rule of law and the recognition of basic civil liberties, reformist is becoming a misnomer for this faction in Khatami's camp. Although none of those who lean towards abandoning Khatami's reform project speak of overthrowing the regime, their agenda inevitably contains potentials for violence and possibly civil war. A great number of Iranians are disillusioned by Khatami's reformist project, however that should not lead anyone to believe that they are willing to participate in a bloody regime change. The "accommodationists" led by the President intend to continue the path of transformation from within. They do acknowledge sluggish progress and a failure to implement their campaign promises. However, they argue that institutional change requires time and may only be sustainable through a mass societal participation. Many critics of Khatami have castigated him for not using his political capital of 70% of the popular vote to push through reforms. However, Khatami has refrained from making authoritarian use of his popularity on behalf of liberating civil society. Although it might entail his political suicide, nevertheless the fact that Khatami insisted on institutional transformation of the state show his sound political understanding of the necessity of legitimating fundamental reforms through state institutions, not by charisma alone. To that end he introduced two new legislations to expand the power of the presidency. Although they were passed by the majlis, the Guardian Council rejected both and declared them unconstitutional and contrary to Islamic rules of governance. Accommodationists: Transforming the regime into an Islamic Democratic State without abolishing Velayat-e Faqih Reformists Abolitionists: Leave the polity and establish a non-loyal opposition, possibly with secular oppositional forces. Democratic regime without the institutionalization of Islam. Concessionists: Maintain the status quo and tolerate a paralyzed reform movement. Conservatives Autocratic Abolitionists: Security forces and ideological factions, The second phase of state-building. Table 4. What Does Each Faction Envision?

10 Politics of Reform 21 Former president Rafsanjani, who heads the Expediency Council, leads the "concessionists" in the conservative camp. This faction does not intend to eliminate the reformists from power altogether. They believe that the regime still needs the legitimacy afforded to them by popular vote. They are conscious of their image in the international community of nations and therefore do not advocate the establishment of a totalitarian theocracy. They believe that the presence of a debilitated reform movement adds to their credibility both domestically and internationally. They also fear that total disregard for popular demands would be detrimental to the continuity of their political power. Factions in the leadership of the Revolutionary Guards, the Guardian Council, and the Assembly of the Experts form the "autocratic abolitionist" tendency in the conservative camp. They are the main force behind the attempt to eliminate reformists from all organs of power. They wish to rule by coercion, rather than lead by consent. What is primarily at stake for the leadership of the Revolutionary Guards is the loss of power. Their resentment of the reform movement is less motivate by their sacred ideology and more by their profane interests. Any form of political transparency, which a strong civil society demands, threatens their political and economic livelihood. Moreover, there are those among the clergy who fundamentally despise with democratic principles. They argue that they represent the only legitimate rule of law and that an Islamic state ought to be accountable only to God. They believe that the masses are ignorant of their divine interest and thus, the clergy may properly annul popular mandates if they judge it to be unislamic. The Islamic Republic and the September 11 Tragedy Iranians were the only Islamic people in the Middle East who poured into the streets of major cities and held a candlelight vigil in honor of the victims of the Twin Tower attacks. Not only did the regime refrain from interfering with the public ceremonies of mourning, it also officially extended its sympathy and condolences to the American people. September 11, 2001 had two significant consequences for Iranian-American relations. First, the Iranian regime saw the tragedy as an opportunity to vindicate themselves from involvement in the global networks of terror. The Islamic Republic had long been hostile to the al-qaeda terrorists and their Taliban supporters in Kabul. Second, September 11 gave another chance to the Islamic Republic to move closer to the US through assuring a peaceful and smooth transition in post-taliban Afghanistan. In both fronts, Iranians were sincere. They did not oppose military action against Afghanistan and the expansion of American military presence in Central Asia, and furthermore, offered Combat Search and Rescue (CSAR) assistance to American forces operating near Iranian territories. In December 2001, the Iranian delegation played a crucial role in the Bonn conference which was convened to determine the composition of the interim government in Afghanistan. The Iranians forced their own ally and the former president of Afghanistan, Burhanuddin Rabbani, to withdraw in favor of the American candidate, Hamed Karzai. This was one of the rare moments when the Iranian president was able to assert his leadership in regard to Iran-U.S. relations without significant resistance from his conservative opposition. Unfortunately, the Bush administration did not recognize the magnitude of the Islamic Republic's gesture. Not only did the administration fail to

11 Politics of Reform 22 acknowledge the Iranians' role, President Bush further muted the overtures emerging from Iran by lumping them with Iraq and North Korea in the axis of evil. The President s state of the union address stunned Iranian reformists. The Bush administration s continuous escalation of hostilities between the two governments offered the hard-liners in Iran a better opportunity to ridicule the reformists and to brand all demands for political reform as American conspiracy. Not recognizing its political and historical context, the White House s hawkish policy is partly responsible for the current stalemate of reform in Iran. Iran is far from an ideal democratic society, but it unquestionably has one of the most institutionalized forms of democratic governance in the Middle East. Iran society must change, but this change ought to spring from within and reflect the cultural and historical specificities of Iranian society. If the Bush administration is genuinely interested in promoting democracy in Iran, then it must: 1. Recognize the Islamic Republic in its totality, without distinction between "elected" and "unelected" officials. Lending support to the reformist faction and condemning the other has been detrimental to the processes of democratic change in Iran. The United States needs to accept the Iranian regime with all its inherent contradictions and refrain from interfering in its domestic affairs. When, for example, President Bush announced that he wants the head of the Iranian judiciary ousted, in effect his statement constrains the "elected" officials from pursuing the same agenda. No party in Iran can withstand the political risk of appearing to be acting on behalf of a foreign government, particularly if that government is the United States. The U.S. needs to refrain from interfering with the domestic affairs of Iran, a notion that I call a constructive disengagement. 2. Begin direct negotiation without preconditions for the normalization of diplomatic relations, an active engagement. Any outstanding issues and grievances between the two countries should be an item for negotiation, rather than a precondition of it. Negotiation without preconditions is the only possible way that the U.S. can facilitate the reintegration of Iran into the world community and thereby lessen their threats of support for terrorism or the pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. The Administration needs to rethink its policy of embargo, for this policy only increases the chances of more autocratic alternatives in Iran. History has proven that economic hardship does not breed democracy, but rather further alienates people from participating in political processes, and paves the road for the emergence of tyrannical regimes. * Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Georgia State University. He is the author of the forthcoming book Islam and Dissent in Postrevolutionary Iran, London & New York: I. B. Tauris.