From Power to Chaos — Tracking Iran's Four-Month Slide

Sept 28, 2009

By Robin Wright

What a difference a few months can make.

In early June, Iran was at the apex of its power on the world stage. Aid to insurgents in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon had helped convert Tehran into a regional superpower rivaled only by Israel. At home, hard-liners led by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had consolidated control of parliament, the judiciary and the military and marginalized reform parties.

This week, however, Iran heads into talks in Geneva with the U.S. and five other world powers more vulnerable at home and abroad than at any time since the revolution's chaotic early days. Despite defiant talk and a weekend display of military force, the world's only theocracy begins its most important diplomatic engagement in three decades in real trouble. (See international protests of Iran's election.)

Over the past four months, the Islamic Republic has faced two game changers. First, the June 12 presidential election spawned a vibrant new opposition movement, a political schism among the theocrats and popular protests that deeply undermined the hard-line regime's legitimacy among its constituents. Second, the gotcha revelation on Sept. 25 about a secret nuclear plant put Tehran on the defensive with both its enemies and allies — and undermined Ahmadinejad's U.N. media blitz, which had been designed to boost his post-election image. (See the top 10 Ahmadinejad-isms.)

Now those challenges are converging, tightening the squeeze on the regime. Over the weekend, Iran's new opposition chose sides in the nuclear debate — and sided with the world. "The Iranian Green Movement does not want a nuclear bomb, but instead desires peace for the world and democracy for Iran," said a statement issued by filmmaker and opposition spokesman Mohsen Makhmalbouf. "The Green Movement in Iran furthermore understands the world's concerns and in fact has similar concerns itself."

That's a first. In the past, Iranians rallied around even unpopular governments when confronted by the outside world. Iraq's 1980 invasion of Iran helped a young revolution already running out of steam consolidate its hold on power and survive eight years of the Middle East's deadliest modern conflict. Tehran's quest for nuclear energy, widely embraced as a key to development in the 21st century, has also long been a potent unifier of Iran's disparate political factions. Persian national pride has been a powerful force for millennia.

But the revelation of a hidden nuclear facility near the holy city of Qum that is run by Iran's élite Revolutionary Guards — and the threat of more sanctions if Tehran does not cooperate with the new U.S.-sponsored diplomatic initiative — appear to have deepened the political fissures rather than led Iranians to close ranks.

The critical unknown is whether the escalating pressures will lead the theocracy to compromise or make it even more obstinate once it reaches the negotiating table.

The regime's response on Sunday was to flex its military muscle. To shouts of "Allahu akbar," the Revolutionary Guards test-fired short-range missiles to demonstrate that Iran has the necessary arsenal to defend itself. "We are going to respond to any military action in a crushing manner, and it doesn't make any difference which country or regime has launched the aggression," said General Hossein Salami, head of the Revolutionary Guard Air Force, according to Iran's state media. The tests were successful, with the short-range missiles hitting their targets, he said. (Read "Iran Standoff: Is a Nuclear-Free Middle East a Pipe Dream?")

Further tests of longer-range missiles are expected in the days running up to the historic meeting between American, French, British, Russian, Chinese and German diplomats and their Iranian counterparts.

Thumbing its nose at the world may not help, since even the skeptical Russians suggested last week that further sanctions may be in order if Iran does not come clean about the secret facility and other older questions about Tehran's nuclear program. "The Iranians are in a very bad spot now because of this deception, in terms of all of the great powers," Defense Secretary Robert Gates told ABC News on Sunday.

Just how bad will be determined after talks begin on Oct. 1 in Geneva's historic Hotel de Ville. "If we don't get the answers that we are expecting and the changes in behavior that we are looking for, then we will work with our partners to move for sanctions," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told CBS on Sunday. "The burden has now shifted ... They have to come to this meeting on Oct. 1 and present convincing evidence as to the purpose of their nuclear program. We don't believe that they can present convincing evidence that it's only for peaceful purposes. But we are going to put them to the test."

Rethinking our Iran strategy: The Islamic Republic's revolution may be at a crossroads. It's a possible opening for the U.S.

Los Angeles Times

By Robin Wright and Robert Litwak

September 13, 2009

Three decades of assumptions about Iran -- including the premises behind Washington's recent outreach to Tehran -- have been transformed by its stunning uprising. It's time for a policy rethink.

The Obama administration's offer to engage was the right idea. But the theocracy's brutal crackdown on the opposition since the June 12 presidential election, followed by the purge of senior politicians in show trials and an alarming increase in general executions, marks a turning point for Iran's revolution. U.S. policy now needs a broader approach. Recent history offers relevant guidelines.

The three most important revolutions of the 20th century -- for their political innovation and impact -- happened in the Soviet Union, China and Iran. At the peak of revolutionary paranoia, the Soviet Union and China witnessed turmoil similar to what is happening today in Iran. Soon afterward, however, Moscow and Beijing altered course. Both began the move from defiant revolutionary regime to a normal state willing to work within the international order and mended relations with the United States.

The shift in both the Soviet Union and China was partly tied to the maturation of revolutions, as Crane Brinton outlined in "The Anatomy of Revolution," which leads to the final stage of "convalescence" that plays out over years, even decades. The Islamic Republic is on the same trajectory. Its current uprising pits those trying to transform Iran into a normal state against unrelenting revolutionaries. The men and women now on trial have made the transition, in varying degrees, in their political thinking.

In their civil disobedience since June, millions of Iranians also have indicated that they're ready for normalcy. The U.S. should now factor them into policy.

The pattern of revolutions suggests, however, that a catalyst is required to trigger the critical transition. The spark has traditionally been one of three factors: a geo-strategic challenge, economic necessity or political exigency. In other words, a revolution needing to convert an enemy into an ally to survive.

In the Soviet Union, Josef Stalin launched show trials of Communist Party officials from 1936 to 1938, when vast numbers were dispatched to gulags or executed. Yet pressure from the Nazi threat combined with the costs of war spawned a U.S.-Soviet alliance and Stalin's meeting with President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Stalin was succeeded by Nikita Khrushchev, who started de-Stalinization. The revolution's later undoing began after Mikhail Gorbachev concluded that the Soviet system of political control was no longer viable in the information-based global economy and that basic changes were essential to survive.

In the 1960s, China had all the trappings of a rogue state. It defied the international order. It detonated an atomic bomb in 1964. And in 1966, it launched the Cultural Revolution, a period of chaotic political and social upheaval when Mao Tse-tung ruthlessly purged alleged "bourgeois liberals" in the Communist Party. Yet in 1969, the collapse of the Sino-Soviet alliance followed by troop buildups along their mutual border led Mao to consider the realpolitik of normalizing relations with Washington. Henry Kissinger's secret 1971 trip led to President Nixon's historic visit in 1972.

Neither Stalin nor Mao became America's friends. But those encounters -- under conditions of strategic need -- did pave the way for meaningful engagement.

Iran's three most specific overtures to the U.S. fit the same pattern. In 1986, at a desperate juncture in its war with Iraq, Tehran was willing to deal secretly with both the United States and Israel to acquire weaponry, namely TOW anti-tank missiles. Even after this arms-for-hostages swap was revealed, the regime still sent a secret emissary to the White House to probe further potential.

In the early 1990s, Iran offered the most lucrative petroleum deal in its history to Conoco, to develop offshore oil and gas fields to help pay for postwar reconstruction and modernization demanded by a war-weary population.

In 2001, after the U.S. toppled Afghanistan's Taliban, Iran cooperated with Washington in crafting a new government. After the U.S. invasion toppled Iraq's Saddam Hussein in 2003, Tehran put out feelers, prodded partly by the Swiss, about resolving differences with Washington. Flanked by U.S. troops on key borders, Tehran wanted to ensure it was not next.



Three U.S. administrations did not exploit opportunities when Iran needed to play and reached out. The challenge now is to create a confluence of factors that will make Tehran again feel that a real deal with Washington is in its interest. Then engagement has a real shot.

Under the current circumstances, it doesn't.

Diplomacy centered primarily on Iran's nuclear program is unlikely to work. The regime as well as many protesters view pressure to end uranium enrichment -- a process to provide fuel for peaceful nuclear energy that can be subverted to develop a nuclear weapon -- as a challenge to Iran's sovereignty and a denial of its economic development. Under the current circumstances, the regime is more likely to engage in a process -- largely to get the world off its back -- that would not produce enduring substance or real resolution.

And if that diplomatic tactic doesn't work, simply slapping on more international sanctions (given stonewalling by Russia and China on anything tough) also seems unlikely to alone squeeze Iran into cooperation.

Yet a military strike is also likely to backfire, instead rallying Persian nationalism around the regime, just as Saddam Hussein's 1980 invasion mobilized support for the revolution at a time it was running out of steam.

The Obama administration would be well-advised to step back and recalculate what conditions would lead Iran to feel that the benefits of beginning the transition to a normal state outweigh the costs of sticking to the revolutionary zealotry increasingly rejected by its own people.

Robin Wright, author of "Dreams and Shadows: The Future of the Middle East," has covered Iran since 1973. Robert Litwak is the former director for nonproliferation at the National Security Council. Both are at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Will Iran's 'Kennedys' Challenge Ahmadinejad?

Monday, Aug. 17, 2009
By Robin Wright

The brothers Larijani — often referred to as the Kennedys of Iran — are emerging as a powerful counterweight to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from within the conservative camp. And unlike other Ahmadinejad rivals, the Larijanis are fully endorsed by Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatullah Ali Khamenei.

The Aug. 15 appointment of Sadegh Larijani as head of Iran's judiciary puts Larijanis at the head two of the three branches of Iran's government. Older brother Ali Larijani is speaker of parliament.

Over the past 30 years, the five sons of a senior cleric have been a major force in Iran's power structure, either serving in or running for positions including the presidency and various diplomatic roles as well as posts in Cabinet ministries, the Council of Guardians, the legislature, the powerful National Security Council, the judiciary, Iran's top broadcasting authority and even the Revolutionary Guards. Over the past year, they have consolidated their power.

Mohammad Javad Larijani, a Berkeley-educated mathematician, has been a member of parliament, Deputy Foreign Minister and adviser to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Bagher Larijani, a physician, has served as Deputy Minister of Health. And Fazel Larijani, a diplomat, spent years posted in Ottawa. All five are bearded and bespectacled.

Sadegh Larijani takes over Iran's judiciary at a critical moment, as the government mounts mass trials of opposition supporters who stand accused of fomenting a foreign-backed velvet revolution against the regime. The third such trial opened Aug. 16. A comparatively junior cleric for such a high-profile job (he was born in 1960, month unknown), Sadegh served for eight years on the 12-member Council of Guardians, the powerful body that vets legislation, political candidates and election results.

His appointment to a five-year term reflects the Supreme Leader's trust in the Larijanis amid unprecedented public anger over the disputed June 12 presidential election, and the alleged torture and rape of protesters arrested in a brutal crackdown.

"Sadegh Larijani's ties to the Revolutionary Guards and intelligence agencies provide ample reason to believe that he will use his new powers to crack down even further on human rights and civil liberties than did his predecessor," Mehdi Khalaji wrote in an analysis for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

His skepticism may be based on the fact that the Larijanis were powerful critics of Iran's reform movement during the presidency of Mohammed Khatami. But the Larijanis also reflect a nuanced but significant difference from the hard-line principlist movement of President Ahmadinejad. In Iran's ever shifting political spectrum, the brothers are today considered pragmatic conservatives.

"Ten years ago, the Larijanis would have been considered arch hard-liners," said Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. "But the spectrum has moved so far right in recent years that now, compared with Ahmadinejad, they appear somewhat moderate."

The differences between the Larijanis and Ahmadinejad are both political and personal. Ali Larijani ran for President against Ahmadinejad in 2005; he came in sixth with less than 6% of the vote. Khamenei then appointed him head of the National Security Council, a body that reports to the Supreme Leader rather than the President, who has just one seat on the council.

In that capacity, Larijani was the lead negotiator with the international community on Iran's disputed nuclear program. Although he took a tough line on Iran's right to enrich uranium as part of its energy program, he was also interested in a deal that would prevent deepening Iran's isolation, according to diplomats involved in the talks.

But Ali Larijani often found himself at odds with Ahmadinejad's inflammatory rhetoric, and finally quit in 2007, underscoring the political divide even among the conservatives. "They were ideological differences," Larijani told an Iranian news agency. "I thought that the differences would be damaging and thus I resigned." Larijani ran for parliament last year, and was elected speaker.

After the June election protests erupted, Ali Larijani was also one of the few regime officials to publicly warn that many Iranians questioned Ahmadinejad's victory. "The opinion of this majority should be respected and a line should be drawn between them and rioters and miscreants," Larijani said in comments posted on an Iranian website.

In a further jab at Ahmadinejad, the speaker warned last week that government ministers should have the qualifications necessary for their positions. Cabinet picks require parliamentary approval, and the legislature has previously rejected Ahmadinejad's picks for being unqualified. The vote on his Cabinet nominations will be the first major test for Ahmadinejad as he begins his second and final term.

Thus far, however, all the Larijanis have heeded political boundaries. Ali Larijani last week announced that a parliamentary investigation proved that some detainee claims of torture were false. "On the basis of precise and comprehensive investigations conducted about the detainees at Kahrizak and Evin prisons, no cases of rape and sexual abuse were found," he told parliament. The probe lasted less than a week.

"Larijani has been a very ineffective speaker," says Iran scholar Shaul Bakhash. "[Parliament] has been a virtual no-show on all issues during his leadership ... And his investigation of allegations of mistreatment of prisoners was clearly slapdash."

The ill will between the Larijanis and Ahmadinejad is also rooted in a social class divide, according to Sadjadpour. The Larijani brothers are the progeny of the late Grand Ayatullah Mirza Hashem Amoli, a marja whose interpretations of Islam are considered binding by a following of devout Shi'ite Muslims. Some of his sons have also married into prominent clerical families, giving them status beyond politics. Ali Larijani represents Qum, the center of Islamic scholarship in Iran, in parliament. Ahmadinejad, by contrast, is the son of a blacksmith.

Over the years, the Larijani brothers have expressed realist positions on Iran's relations with the United States. Mohammad Javad Larijani, who did doctoral work in mathematics at the University of California, has often urged an end to tensions. "Our country's relations with America are important in terms of our national interests," he said in a public debate a decade ago. "We should regard our relations with America realistically and without extremism, and weigh them with the criteria of our national interests."

But critics also charge that the Larijani brothers have risen so far as much from opportunism as political savvy. Many analysts believe Ali Larijani may be positioning himself to run for the presidency again after Ahmadinejad's term ends in 2013. "They are nakedly ambitious. Their overarching principle seems to be to position themselves wherever power lies," said Sadjadpour. "If the Shah were still in power they'd be coveting him. And if Iran evolves into a democracy they'll try and reinvent themselves as progressive democrats."

In Iran, a Hostage-Taker Is Now Hostage

The Washington Post

August 9, 2009

By Robin Wright

Last week Iran's theocracy widened its crackdown from suppressing an opposition movement to putting on trial the very revolutionaries who launched the Islamic republic. This new purge may be more profound politically than the campaign against the followers of Mir Hossein Mousavi: The Iranian revolution is eating its children.

Mohsen Mirdamadi saw it all coming. He warned me about it five years ago. The only thing he didn't foresee was his own role. Last week, he sat in a revolutionary court, dressed in gray prison pajamas, as one of its victims.

I've followed Mirdamadi since the 1979 U.S. Embassy takeover. In 1981, I stood below the plane that brought 52 American diplomats to freedom in Algeria and wondered about the type of people who seized, interrogated and brutalized hostages for 444 days. Mirdamadi was one of three ringleaders. Former hostage John Limbert remembers him as "particularly nasty." I met him a decade ago.

Like many early revolutionaries, Mirdamadi had evolved over the intervening two decades from a scruffy student radical into a balding, pinstripe-suited realist. In 2000, he ran for parliament as a reformer.

"Our emphasis originally was on winning independence from foreign influence and creating an Islamic state," he explained at the spartan headquarters of the Islamic Iran Participation Front, just two blocks from the old U.S. Embassy. "But today our emphasis is on freedoms. . . . Our tactics have shifted, too. Before, we carried out a revolution. Today, we're trying evolution."

A surprisingly small man, Mirdamadi took the powerful chairmanship of parliament's national security and foreign relations committee, a platform he used to advocate political openings, freedom of assembly and speech, women's rights, and an independent press, albeit within the boundaries of Islamic propriety. He launched the newspaper Norouz -- or New Year -- which advocated the rule of law and challenged authority. Ultimately, the authorities charged him with libel, subversion, "encouraging hooligans to undermine public order" and propagating "moral decadence." The paper was banned.

Unrepentant about the hostage drama, he nevertheless urged better relations with Washington. "Once enmity with America was in line with our interests," he said in 2002, "but it is not like that today. Our interests today lie in detente with America."

Mirdamadi came to represent the forces that carry revolutions into their final phase, what Crane Brinton in his classic "The Anatomy of Revolution" called "the convalescence." But he apparently went too far. When he registered to run for reelection in 2004, he was disqualified by the clerical Council of Guardians despite his fame. Dozens of incumbents and some 2,500 others were also disqualified. Mirdamadi led a mass resignation of 124 parliamentarians, almost half the total, in protest. It was the beginning, he told me a few months later, of what he feared would become a "bloodless coup."

In 2006, he became leader of his party, the largest reform faction. In 2008, he backed Mousavi for president. And in June, he was among the first arrested when Iran's uprising erupted. While Mirdamadi was in parliament, Amnesty International issued 13 "urgent action" appeals asking supporters to write him demanding the release of political prisoners. Last month, it issued an appeal about him -- as a political prisoner.

Mirdamadi sat in court last week with 100 others, including a former vice president, cabinet members, presidential advisers and spokesmen. An Iranian news agency said some may face charges of being "mohareb," or God's enemy, which can carry the death penalty. The best-case scenario is that, after more "confessions," they are pardoned but banned from politics and their parties dissolved.

The irony -- one of many in the current crisis -- is that the purge taking place to prevent an allegedly foreign-backed "velvet revolution" may in fact spur one. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's inaugural speech Wednesday was full of inane bluster. "We must play a key role in the management of the world," he told parliament.

But the regime only looks more desperate with each passing week. Tens of thousands of security forces had to be deployed in Tehran to preserve order on inauguration day, yet YouTube snippets still showed Iranians on crowded subway escalators shouting "death to the dictator" for all to hear. The widening polarization of society will make it difficult for Ahmadinejad to rule during his second term.

"The goals of the revolution are being forgotten as this government becomes more of a dictatorship," Mirdamadi said, predicting the current turmoil. "But people still want change."

Iran's Protesters: Phase 2 of Their Feisty Campaign

Monday, Jul. 27, 2009

By Robin Wright

Phase 2 has begun. Six weeks after millions took to the streets to protest Iran's presidential election, their uprising has morphed into a feistier, more imaginative and potentially enduring campaign.

The second phase plays out in a boycott of goods advertised on state-controlled television. Just try buying a certain brand of dairy product, an Iranian human-rights activist told me, and the person behind you in line is likely to whisper, "Don't buy that. It's from an advertiser." It includes calls to switch on every electric appliance in the house just before the evening TV news to trip up Tehran's grid. It features quickie "blitz" street demonstrations, lasting just long enough to chant "Death to the dictator!" several times but short enough to evade security forces. It involves identifying paramilitary Basij vigilantes linked to the crackdown and putting marks in green — the opposition color — or pictures of protest victims in front of their homes. It is scribbled antiregime slogans on money. And it is defiant drivers honking horns, flashing headlights and waving V signs at security forces. (See pictures of Iran's presidential election and its turbulent aftermath.)

The tactics are unorganized, largely leaderless and only just beginning. They spread by e-mail, websites and word of mouth. But their variety and scope indicate that Iran's uprising is not a passing phenomenon like the student protests of 1999, which were quickly quashed. This time, Iranians are rising above their fears. Although embryonic, today's public resolve is reminiscent of civil disobedience in colonial India before independence or in the American Deep South in the 1960s. Mohandas Gandhi once mused that "even the most powerful cannot rule without the cooperation of the ruled." That quotation is now popular on Iranian websites.

Its impact varies, but Phase 2 has begun to exact a price from those who ignore the popular will. Fatemeh Haghighatjoo, a former member of parliament, told me that some companies have cut back on TV advertising, and some stores have dropped advertised brands. A new boycott of text messaging could be costing a state company more than $1 million a day. "There is optimism that protests will continue one way or another," says Farideh Farhi, an Iranian analyst at the University of Hawaii, "because people who are normally not rabblerousers are finding ways to counter the government crackdown."

The new camaraderie of resistance was visible at the July 17 Friday prayer sermon given by former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani at Tehran University. Nonreligious Iranians turned up for political reasons. The devout showed them how to carry out the rituals, with strangers handing out newspapers as substitute prayer mats for overflow crowds. Men and women prayed together, a regime taboo. When Rafsanjani referred to detainees, the crowd interrupted by roaring, "Political prisoners must be freed!" Calling for support of Iran's Supreme Leader, who backed the crackdown, another prayer official intoned, "We are all your soldiers, Khamenei! We await your orders!" But supporters of defeated presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi shouted back, "We are your soldiers, Mousavi! We await your orders!" And when told to shout "Down with America!" the crowd instead chanted "Down with Russia!" — whose leaders had congratulated President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on his re-election and hosted him four days later. (See pictures of people around the world protesting Iran's election.)

The protests tap into a long Iranian tradition. The seeds of the 1905-11 Constitutional Revolution — which produced Iran's first parliament and constitution — were planted in the Tobacco Protest of the 19th century, when even women in the royal harem stopped smoking their water pipes to protest an exclusive concession given by the Shah to a British company. Protests, strikes and boycotts prevented Iran from becoming a British protectorate in 1920, secured the reappointment of reformist Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh in 1952 and — most significant of all — ended 2,500 years of dynastic rule in 1979 and ushered in the Islamic Republic.

The current uprising is nowhere near as widespread as that of 1979. Yet the activism is creating a new political space in Iran. The public is defining its own agenda, with Rafsanjani, Mousavi and other opposition figures responding to sentiment on the street rather than directing it. After meeting on July 20 with the families of people detained following the election, Mousavi warned the power structure, "You are facing something new: an awakened nation, a nation that has been born again and is here to defend its achievements."

As Iran's second phase of protests takes shape, the regime's future may depend on whether it heeds that warning.

Tipping Point in Tehran

The Washington Post
A Gathering Opposition Faces a Weakened Regime
July 14, 2009

By Robin Wright
How much has changed for Iran in one occasionally breathtaking month. The erratic uprising is becoming as important as the Islamic revolution 30 years ago -- and not only for Iran. Both redefined political action throughout the Middle East.

The costs are steadily mounting for the regime. Just one day before the June 12 presidential election, the Islamic republic had never been so powerful. Tehran had not only survived three decades of diplomatic isolation and economic sanctions but had emerged a regional superpower, rivaled only by Israel. Its influence shaped conflicts and politics from Afghanistan to Lebanon.

But the day after the election, the Islamic republic had never appeared so vulnerable. The virtual militarization of the state has failed to contain the uprising, and its tactics have further alienated and polarized society. It has also shifted the focus from the election to Iran's leadership.

Just a day before the election, Iran also had the best opportunity in 30 years to end its pariah status. Since the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy, Tehran has sparred with five U.S. administrations. President Obama's offer of direct engagement is the most generous to date. He had the world's major powers and a growing number of Americans on board.

The tide has turned. At its summit in Italy last week, the Group of Eight industrialized nations "deplored" the post-election crackdown and urged "democratic dialogue" with the opposition. At his news conference there, Obama noted the G-8's "strong condemnation about the appalling treatment of peaceful protesters post-election in Iran" and "behavior that just violates basic international norms."

Given its advancing nuclear technology and regional influence, Iran believed before the election that it held the trump cards in any negotiations. Now, politically disgraced, it is the needy one. Yet Washington might also pay a price for engaging with a government that brutalizes its people. Any involvement could effectively bestow legitimacy on a disputed election and reject the transparency and justice that protesters are seeking.

The uprising has transformed Iran's political landscape. Over the past month, dozens of disparate political factions have coalesced into two rival camps: the New Right and the New Left.

The core of the New Right is a second generation of revolutionaries, called principlists, who have wrested control of the security instruments and increasingly pushed their elders aside -- at least for now. It includes Mojtaba Khamenei, the supreme leader's son and chief of staff; Mojtaba Samareh Hashemi, a presidential adviser and campaign manager; Intelligence Minister Gholam Hossein Mohseni-Ejehei; Interior Minister Sadegh Mahsouli; Major Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari of the Revolutionary Guards; Basij commander Hasan Taeb; influential commentators such as Hossein Shariatmadari, editor of the newspaper Kayhan; and industry titans like Mehrbad Bazrpash, the former cabinet minister for youth affairs who now heads Saipa, the automobile manufacturer.

The New Left is a de facto coalition of disparate interest groups that found common cause in anger after the election. The name comes from opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, who was considered leftist as prime minister in the 1980s, and the opposition's goal is to open up the rigid theocracy.

Its organization, tools and strategy are weak, but it is the most extensive coalition since the 1979 revolution. The New Left includes former presidents, cabinet ministers and members of parliament as well as vast numbers of young people (the dominant demographic), the most politically active women in the Islamic world, white-collar professionals and inflation-sapped laborers.

What was a political divide has become a schism. Many Iranian leaders served time together in the shah's jails; today, their visions of the Islamic republic differ so sharply that reconciliation would be almost impossible.

What happens next will be determined by three factors: leadership, unity and momentum.

The opposition is most vulnerable on leadership. The big unanswered question is whether Mousavi, a distinctly uncharismatic politician, can lead the new opposition over the long term. He was an accidental leader of the reform movement, more the product of public sentiment than the creator of it. Without dynamic direction, the opposition may look elsewhere.

The regime is most vulnerable on unity. Many government employees, including civil servants and members of the military, have long grumbled about the strict theocracy. In 1997, a government poll found that 84 percent of the Revolutionary Guards, which include many young men merely fulfilling national service, voted for Mohammad Khatami, the first reform president.

Momentum may be the decisive factor. The regime will need to shift public attention to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's second-term agenda. Though Ahmadinejad blames the outside world for the protests, he may focus on regional or international goals to win the legitimacy that his presidency is unable to get at home.

For the opposition, the calendar of Shiite rites, Persian commemorations and revolutionary markers is rich with occasions to spark demonstrations. The opposition also has supporters in Iran's parliament who are likely to challenge Ahmadinejad's cabinet choices and economic proposals. Further arrests and future trials could also spark new tension. With each flash point, the regime's image is further tainted, its legitimacy undermined.

Robin Wright, a former Post reporter, is the author of "Dreams and Shadows: The Future of the Middle East" and is a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

U.S. Citizen in Tehran Arrested

Friday, Jul. 10, 2009
By Robin Wright
Iran's political upheaval has claimed its first American, with the arrest on July 9 of Kian Tajbakhsh, an Iranian American living in Tehran, according to an Iranian human-rights group and family friends.

As part of the latest security sweep designed to end nationwide protests against the disputed June 12 presidential election, Tajbakhsh was picked up from his home late Thursday following a day of renewed demonstrations, according to Hadi Ghaemi of the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran. His computer equipment was confiscated and his home ransacked, Ghaemi said.

Tajbakhsh, 47, was not involved in the protests, the sources said, but the Columbia University graduate had been among four dual citizens arrested in 2007 on charges of trying to foment a "velvet revolution" against the Islamic regime. He spent four months in Tehran's notorious Evin Prison before his release. Tajbakhsh, an urban-planning expert, taught urban policy at the New School for Social Research in New York City from 1994 until 2001. Before his arrest in 2007, he had served as an adviser to the Iranian Ministry of Health and been a consultant for George Soros' Open Society Institute.

The regime has repeatedly charged that the recent unrest is a plot by foreign powers, particularly Britain, to orchestrate an uprising against the theocracy. On the eve of the pivotal vote, Supreme Leader Ayatullah Ali Khamenei expressed concern about a "soft" or "velvet" revolution, the term originally used to describe the 1989 overthrow of the communist regime in Czechoslovakia. (See the top 10 players in Iran's power struggle.)

The head of the country's Revolutionary Guards political division also charged that supporters of opposition presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi were part of the plot. "Any kind of velvet revolution will not be successful in Iran," he warned in a comment on the website of the Guards, the élite wing of Iran's military created to protect the revolution.

The detention is being widely condemned. In Washington, Haleh Esfandiari, who also was detained in Iran in 2007, said the regime's "paranoia regarding a so-called velvet revolution planned from the outside and assisted from the inside has gotten out of control."

Esfandiari, director of the Middle East Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, said Iran's Intelligence Ministry "keeps trying to prove the unprovable." Esfandiari was released after a show of public pressure by then Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton as well as a letter to Khamenei from former Congressman Lee Hamilton, the president of the Wilson Center and co-chair of both the Iraq Study Group and the 9/11 Commission. (See pictures of Iran's presidential election and its turbulent aftermath.)

After his release from prison, Tajbakhsh opted to stay and work in Iran, where his family lives, and deliberately avoided politics, friends say. "Kian knew his activities were being closely monitored by the government ever since his release from prison in 2007, so he was very careful not to give them any pretext to re-arrest him," said Karim Sadjadpour, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington and a close friend who has talked with his family.

The regime may be trying to implicate the U.S. in the unrest, analysts say. "What's significant is the fact that he was taken by the Revolutionary Guards and that he is, as far as we know, the first U.S. citizen to be detained. I think it's very plausible that Iran's hard-liners are trying to draw the United States into this," Sadjadpour said.

Iran's Embattled Supreme Leader: A Test for Khamenei

Thursday, Jun. 25, 2009
By Robin Wright

The fate of Iran's Islamic revolution now rests in the hands of an enigmatic cleric who is little understood at home, let alone by the outside world. For the past 20 years, pictures of Ayatullah Ali Khamenei, with his oversize glasses, black turban and untrimmed white beard, have adorned shops, government offices and living-room walls throughout Iran. His modest childhood home in Mashhad has become a virtual shrine, his edicts are binding and his powers absolute.

Yet protesters forced from the streets this week have taken to shouting "Death to the dictator" and "Death to Khamenei" from their rooftops. Endowed with the infallible powers of a political pope, Iran's leader has suddenly discovered that his authority has also made him vulnerable.

Since June 19, Khamenei's controversial decision to dismiss all allegations of vote rigging and throw his weight behind President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has produced the most serious challenge to his rule — and ultimately to the very concept of a Supreme Leader — since the 1979 revolution. Protesters have spurned his claim that foreign powers are behind the demonstrations, while opposition leader Mir-Hossein Mousavi continues to demand that the disputed election be annulled.

Khamenei once again warned on June 24 that "neither the establishment nor the nation will yield to pressure at any cost." Demonstrations have abated under the unprecedented show of force by riot police and the paramilitary Basij vigilantes, but amid signs that the cost is a growing crisis of confidence in the Supreme Leader. (See pictures of the Iranian election and its turbulent aftermath.)

Despite his powers to overturn parliamentary laws, judicial decisions or presidential decrees, Khamenei has never been a very public figure, either as President between 1981 and 1989 or as Supreme Leader since then.

"There is perhaps no leader in the world more important to current world affairs but less known and understood than Ayatollah Ali Khamenei," writes Karim Sadjadpour in Reading Khamenei, a publication of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "Neither a dictator nor a democrat — but with traits of both — Khamenei is the single most important individual in a highly factionalized, autocratic regime."(See pictures of people protesting Iran's election around the world.)

Khamenei first emerged in politics as the Islamic republic's third President in 1981, during a period of violent political turmoil that saw a President, a Prime Minister, 10 Cabinet officials and 27 members of parliament killed in massive bomb attacks. He was among the victims. He has walked with a cane, his right hand dangling uselessly at his side, ever since a small bomb inside a tape recorder went off as he was giving a Friday prayer sermon in 1981. He depends on aides or family to cut up his food.

Khamenei's election marked the consolidation of clerical control over the state. Revolutionary leader Imam Khomeini originally banned the clergy from running for the presidency, but as he lost confidence in squabbling technocrats, he urged his protégé to run for office. The result was Iran's first "government of God." Tensions with Mousavi, who at the time held the more powerful position, of Prime Minister, date back to this period. Throughout the 1980s, Khamenei and Mousavi clashed repeatedly on key political and economic issues.

It was also during those early years that Iran's political spectrum began to take shape. At one end were ideologues like Khamenei, who wanted Iran to play the role of a revolutionary "redeemer state," championing the cause of the world's downtrodden, pursuing Islamic political rule throughout the Muslim world and creating a new Islamic geopolitical bloc capable of challenging both East and West.

At the other end were realists and leftists, like Mousavi, who favored institutionalizing the revolution and creating a model Islamic government. Although they supported an Islamist political system and social order as well as independence from the great powers, they also called for a pragmatic foreign policy. The difference boiled down to whether the Islamic republic's top priority was the revolution or the state. That debate remains at the heart of the current crisis.
See the top 10 players in Iran's power struggle.

Khamenei became Iran's second Supreme Leader after Imam Khomeini died in 1989. As a midlevel cleric with little theological standing among his peers, he was in many ways an unlikely choice. Because he inherited the Imam's political powers but little of the religious authority, Khamenei tried to compensate by forging alliances with the security establishment, particularly among the commanders of the Revolutionary Guard and the Basij militia. That relationship has been central to the attempts to put down the uprising since June 20.

Khamenei has also exerted his influence on Iranian society through thousands of fatwas aimed at regulating everyday life. Although he is widely reported to like poetry and play an instrument, Khamenei ruled that music can cause deviant behavior and moral corruption among the young. Foreign news, he ruled, should be outlawed if it in any way "lessens trust in Islamic government," while he deemed neckties part of a "cultural assault" on Muslims. When riding bicycles or motorcycles, Khamenei ruled, women must avoid actions that lead to the wrong kind of attention. He sanctioned clapping on "joyful occasions" but forbade it where religion is involved. Nose piercings, while not forbidden, would have to be covered. (See pictures of the lasting influence of Ayatullah Khameini.)

Some of Khamenei's micromanaging of the everyday was very practical: he condoned oral contraception for women and vasectomies for men to help bring down Iran's high birthrate. And he allowed stem-cell research and cloning, which led to the birth of Iran's first cloned sheep in 2006.

The Supreme Leader's traditional role has been to balance rival factions. Having aligned himself so closely with one political faction in a fiercely contested election, however, Khamenei's greatest challenge may now also come from some of his fellow clerics who have long questioned both the principle of a Supreme Leader as well as the role for the clergy in government.

In the current crisis, most of the senior Ayatullahs in the theological city of Qum have refrained from either endorsing Ahmadinejad's re-election or publicly supporting Khamenei's handling of the crisis. The diversity of opinion among Iran's clerics is reflected in Khamenei's younger brother Hadi, a cleric and former member of parliament who has long advocated cutting back the powers of the Supreme Leader. (See pictures of Ahmadinejad's supporters on LIFE.com.)

"The most important thing we're looking for today in Iran is the rule of law," Hadi Khamenei said in 1999. "And that means no one, whatever his position, is above it. Unfortunately for the rest of us, there are still people at the top who don't accept that basic right."

Despite the challenge to his rule, Khamenei appears prepared to take an increasingly tough stand, leaving little room for retreat or political compromise and forcing him to rely even more heavily on both hard-line allies and Iran's security forces. The outcome of Iran's crisis is likely to affect his political standing as well as whoever ends up as President.
See the top 10 Ahmadinejad-isms.

Lessons for the U.S. As Iran Unravels

By Robin Wright

Monday, Jun. 22, 2009

Who would have thought that Iran, a country that has been the nemesis of the past five American Presidents, might actually become a model for what Washington wants to see happen politically in the Middle East?

Who would have thought that a Berlin Wall moment for the region might happen in the strict Islamic republic, where a revolution 30 years ago unleashed Islam as a modern political idiom and extremism as a tool to confront the West? (See pictures of violence used as intimidation in Iran.)

Unlikely as it seems, the rise of a popular movement relying on civil disobedience to confront authoritarian rule — in the last bloc of countries to hold out against the tide of change that has swept the rest of the world over the past quarter century — is almost a diplomatic dream for the Obama Administration.

I’m not talking about the regime's obstinate reaction or the brutality it unleashed on the streets of Tehran this past weekend. Even in his terse comments since the beginning of the electoral chaos in Iran, Barack Obama has made it clear the violence upsets him greatly. But in his speech to the Islamic world in Cairo on June 4, Obama spoke about the same principles that just eight days later galvanized millions of people throughout Iran to take to the streets.

"All people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn't steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose," Obama said. (Read "Dennis Ross, Iran Adviser, Moves to White House.")

With what now looks like uncanny prescience, he added, "There is no straight line to realize this promise ... Suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away."

Yet in the midst of a debate over the U.S. role in Iran — recent past, present and future — Washington can take almost no credit for what is happening. The $400 million allocated by the Bush Administration for intelligence operations and the $75 million the State Department budgeted to promote democracy in Iran had little if any impact in changing the regime's ways or empowering Iranians. Many Iranian NGOs even publicly said they did not want, need or dare to be tainted by U.S. financial assistance.

This is a revolution that has been unraveling steadily over decades, beginning in its early years. Indeed, Iran's social transformation — educating, energizing and empowering a stronger and more demanding society, part of which has now turned on the regime — may offer Washington important lessons about what does lead to change in the Islamic world.

The symbol of Iran's uprising is a young woman named Neda Agha Soltan, reportedly a philosophy student whose death during the first clashes on June 20 was gruesomely captured on an already famous cell-phone video sent round the world on YouTube. A new generation of feisty women has been at the forefront of the protests. And the female factor is at the heart of Iran's reform movement. See TIME's Pictures of the Week.

But the ruling clerics probably did not understand how it happened until it was too late. During the monarchy, many traditional families were reluctant to send their girls beyond elementary school — or to school at all — for fear of exposure to miniskirts, makeup and westernizing ways during the Shah's rapid modernization programs.

But after the 1979 upheaval, traditional families began sending girls to school — and beyond. Today, the majority of university students in Iran are female — at Tehran University, they make up 65% of the student population — and they have places in virtually every profession. Iran has even had a female Vice President. And women want a bigger say still. (See pictures of people protesting the Iran election around the world.)

The other engine of change is the boomeranging of a policy by the revolutionary regime that in 1979 called on Iran's women to breed an Islamic generation. They complied. Within a decade, Iran's population almost doubled, from 34 million to 62 million.

The theocracy soon realized that it did not have the resources to feed, educate, provide social services for and eventually employ twice the population — and the next generation of children that it in turn would produce. It was the moment the government of God plummeted to earth — because all those young people would also have the vote.

As Iran's baby boomers have grown up, the government has gradually raised the voting age – from 15 to 16, and more recently to 18. Otherwise, the young would be the only sector of society that really counts in an election. Both better educated and savvier about the world, in large part because of access to technology, many young Iranians want something more than what the system has been willing to provide — politically, economically and socially. (Read "White House on Iran Election: A Diplomatic Plus.")

In an attempt to slow the swelling demographics, in the early 1990s the regime introduced a sweeping family-planning program. It dispatched 35,000 women door-to-door to preach the benefits of limiting the number of children to two or less. It provided widespread and often free access to birth control — the Pill, condoms, IUDs, Norplant, tubal ligation and vasectomies — and made the U.N.'s World Population Day a time for clerics to preach the benefits of small families.

An innovative program also required couples to attend a graphically descriptive sex-education and family-planning class before they could get a marriage license. (I attended one class with several couples — and learned a lot.) Iran has brought down the size of the average family from more than seven children to closer to two, winning a U.N. award for family planning in the process.

The overall impact, however, of each of these issues and many others has been to shift the focus from rigid religious ideology to earthly realities, with solutions based on 21st century ideas like sustainable development — and, gradually, even shades of greater democracy.
See TIME's Pictures of the Week.
See TIME's Iran Covers.

The evolution of Iran's revolution

The current confrontation is another phase of the country's century-long political journey. And this one, like the others, will bring lasting changes.

By Robin Wright
June 21, 2009

How ironic. A regime that came to power through a brutal revolution, in a country suspected of secretly developing a nuclear weapon, is now facing its biggest challenge from peaceful civil disobedience.

The largely silent street demonstrations by day and haunting chants echoing across rooftops by night are not -- so far -- a counterrevolution.That's not even their intention.

What they are doing, however, is forcing Iran's Islamic regime to face the same ideals that have swept across five continents over the last quarter of a century -- the supremacy of popular will, justice, accountability and the transparency of power.

The demonstrators may not succeed. Iran's "New Right" -- the war-hardened second generation of leaders, who wear hats instead of turbans -- still has the political power and the physical tools to contain the current confrontation. That could well mean a second (and final) term for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and if it does, the theocracy may increasingly evolve into a thugocracy during the next four years.

But long term, the feisty election campaign and the postelection protests have given legitimacy to the core ideas of political change. It's all so central to what the United States wants to see happen throughout the Middle East. Yet it's also so Iranian.

For 14 centuries, Shiism has been about passionate belief, about sacrifices in the name of perceived injustice and challenges to leadership. These are the principles that stirred people to action when questionable election results were announced just two hours after the polls closed.

For a century, Iranians have been political trailblazers in the 57-nation Islamic bloc. During the 1905-1911 Constitutional Revolution, a powerful coalition of intelligentsia, bazaar merchants and clergy forced the Qajar dynasty to accept a constitution and Iran's first parliament. In 1953, the democratically elected National Front coalition of four parties led by Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh pushed constitutional democracy and forced the last Pahlavi shah to flee to Rome -- until U.S. and British intelligence orchestrated a coup that put him back on the Peacock Throne. And in 1979, yet another coalition of bazaaris, clergy and intellectuals mobilized the streets to end dynastic rule that had prevailed for about 2,500 years.

So the angry energy unleashed this week from the northern Caspian coast to southern Shiraz is the natural sequel, spurred on by 21st century technology and the Internet. Each of the first three phases left indelible imprints on Iranian politics. The fourth will too.

The 1999 student protests failed because they involved only one sector of society; it was a body without a head or a strategy. But the current green-swathed uprising involves an emerging coalition that includes students and sanctions-strapped businessmen, taxi drivers and former presidents, civil servants and members of the national soccer team.

Key clergy have thrown in their turbans too. Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri -- the designated heir to the revolution's founder until his criticism of the regime's injustices in 1989 -- issued a virtual fatwa dismissing the election results and urging Iranians to continue "reclaiming their dues" in calm protests.

He also warned security forces not to follow orders that would eventually condemn them "before God.""Today, censorship and cutting telecommunication lines cannot hide the truth," Montazeri wrote.

Senior clerics in the holy city of Qom, many of whom never favored an Islamic republic for fear its flaws would taint Islam, have also failed to embrace the election outcome.

Even the brother of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Hadi Khamenei, himself a cleric and former member of parliament, urged that an impartial committee probe the election results and provide a full public accounting.

As the coalition expands, the stakes are also widening well beyond who ends up as president. The two faces of the Islamic Republic -- Ali Khamenei and former Prime Minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi -- are now pitted against each other. The religious ideologue against the lay technocrat.

The two men embody the central debate that has increasingly obsessed Tehran over the last three decades: Is the Islamic Republic first and foremost Islamic or a republic? In other words, does God's law or man's law have the last word?The debate was once beyond public reach. No longer.

Unless Khamenei can satisfy the protesters, all the brutal tools of 150,000 Revolutionary Guards and 300,000 paramilitary Basij will be unable to sustain his legitimacy. At the same time, however, hundreds of thousands of Iranians have not taken to the streets to reject the current constitution but rather to demand that the individual rights it guarantees are enforced.

Past international crises are now being invoked to forecast Iran's fate: Mousavi supporters fear Iran's security forces will reenact China's crackdown in Tiananmen Square. Regime supporters compare Mousavi to former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, fearing the undoing of their own revolution if he prevails.

But whatever happens in Iran will be distinctly Iranian in style and outcome.

The movement has already invoked Shiite symbolism. Mourning is traditionally marked in commemorations on the third, seventh and 40th days after a death, a cycle also used to galvanize greater public outrage when the shah's forces killed protesters in 1978. The commemorations often led to new clashes and more deaths -- and then volatile new cycles of mourning. It was no accident that Mousavi called for the mass demonstration Thursday to mourn the dead killed on Monday.

And the cycle is only beginning. The 40th-day commemorations are traditionally most important. The stunning protests in this fourth phase of Iran's century-long political journey will change the country further. The only question is how long it will take.

Robin Wright, the author of "Dreams and Shadows: The Future of the Middle East," has been covering Iran since 1973. She is a scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington.