Iran’s hardline rulers are set to punish reformists linked to the boldest anti-government protests since the 1979 Islamic revolution, despite the damage this might inflict on the system’s legitimacy and relations with the West.
Now that security forces have quelled the street turmoil that erupted after a disputed June 12 presidential election, the leadership is preparing to put on trial some of the hundreds of political activists and opinion-makers detained since the vote.
Hints abound that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, shocked by the furore over President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-election in a vote critics say was rigged, is striking back.
The editor of hardline Kayhan daily urged on Saturday that losing candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi and reformist ex-President Mohammad Khatami be tried for their ”terrible crimes”.
On Friday, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, head of the Guardian Council that certified the election, said British embassy local staffers accused of inciting unrest had confessed and would face trial. They include the mission’s chief political analyst.
The hardline Javan newspaper said 100 lawmakers had asked the judiciary to prosecute the leaders of ”post-election riots”, citing Mousavi and another defeated candidate, Mehdi Karoubi.
Further stifling of dissent risks discrediting ”republican” institutions that have in the past cloaked Iran’s clerical rulers with a degree of popular legitimacy, analysts said.
”Once the attempt to steal the elections didn’t go as planned, Ahmadinejad opted for the politics of elimination,” said Trita Parsi, president of the Washington-based National Iranian American Council. ”That too will fail, I believe.
”The violence and brutality shown by the government will not be forgotten. It came at the expense of whatever legitimacy the government had left,” he said. ”Khamenei and Ahmadinejad can only rule by force now. Their reliance on the security apparatus is greater now than ever before.”
Officials say the poll was the healthiest in 30 years and its real winners were the 40-million Iranians who voted. They cast those who cried foul as subversives seeking a ”velvet revolution” on behalf of malevolent Western powers.
Alireza Nader, a Rand Corporation analyst, said Iran seemed to be moving towards a more militarised system of government, in which the elite Revolutionary Guard would play a bigger role.
”The consensus-driven system of decision-making in Iran appears to be in jeopardy,” he said, adding that institutions such as the Majles [Parliament] might play an even smaller role.
Nader said Khamenei, who urged all Iranians to rally behind Ahmadinejad after the election, had further sullied his image as a neutral arbiter above the political fray, even though he had already sided with the ultra-conservatives for several years.
”Khamenei may have also damaged his credibility among the traditional clergy by behaving in such a singular manner.”
While some top Shi’ite clerics, such as Ayatollah Mohammad Mesbah Yazdi, are aligned with Ahmadinejad, at least two grand ayatollahs — longtime dissident Hossein Ali Montazeri and his reformist ally Yusof Saanei — have criticised the authorities.
”I hope that the path of the Iranian people to continue their legal protest could be open,” Saanei said on Saturday in a website message that also urged the authorities not to commit the ”great sin” of violating people’s rights.
But with the doors to public protest and legal challenge already slammed shut, reformists who have defied the Supreme Leader’s final verdict on the election face an uncertain future.
Red line
”There is a great possibility of charges being brought against Mousavi,” said Mehrdad Khonsari, a London-based secular dissident. ”He tried hard to say he believes in the fundamentals of the revolution, but he crossed a red line in disobeying Khamenei’s last word. They are not just going to let it go.”
The Islamic Republic’s spectacular spasm of ”people power” has petered out for now. The focus could shift to internal rivalries within the ruling establishment, whose leading members often have business as well as political interests at stake.
Former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a powerful figure since the 1979 revolution, backed Mousavi in the election and appears to have emerged weakened in its aftermath.
He was unable to persuade Khamenei to reprove Ahmadinejad for publicly accusing him and his sons of corruption, but has perhaps prudently opted not to defy the Supreme Leader.
”I think he is being inched out,” said Zeineb al-Assam, of the London-based risk consultancy Executive Analysis.
”He sensed it, which is why he withdrew his support from Mousavi,” she argued. ”Rafsanjani has extensive commercial interests in Iran and I’m sure he wants to conserve those. He is competing with companies owned by the Revolutionary Guards, which have increasingly encroached on his business interests.”
Assem said she expected Iran to ”behave like a police state” in the coming months, leaving few options for the opposition.
”Mousavi doesn’t have the heavyweights in the ruling establishment sufficiently behind him,” she said. ”And crucially he doesn’t have the support of the Revolutionary Guards, who are very much behind the Supreme Leader and Ahmadinejad.”
Iran’s display of intolerance of internal opposition has alarmed the West, which had hoped for new talks on what it suspects is an Iranian nuclear arms quest. Tehran denies this.
The European Union is already weighing whether to withdraw the ambassadors of its 27 member states from Tehran or find some other response to the plight of the British embassy detainees.
US President Barack Obama’s offer of a new start with Iran if it ”unclenches its fist” seems frozen at best.
”It’s out the window,” said Khonsari. ”But the West does not want to close the door on the engagement offer because of the nuclear issue. While these events have been taking their course, Obama is very aware the nuclear clock is ticking.” – Reuters