Alex Vatanka: Good afternoon everyone, pleasure to be here. As Kate said, I’m just going to give you an overview of some of the main issues, the way I look at them. Let me just tell you a bit about where I am looking at the situation from. I am basing all of the things I’m saying here mainly on what’s being said in the Iranian press over the last seven months since the elections in June. So, obviously you can in 20 minutes talk about so much. This is really my view of the trends that are evident in the Iranian press, and the statements that we are hearing from the senior leaders of the so-called regime- I want to tell you a little about what I feel we should bear in mind when we talk about a regime and the people that are associated with the opposition.
So, some key points first and then talk about the election, because I think it's important to remember what this election crisis really is about. Go back to June, and actually go back before the elections that took place in the 12th of June- look at the some of the main drivers behind the protests. I have tried to come up with a significant interest group category, and tried to divide them up. You know this is obviously up for debate, I'm sure you can take these groups off or at to that table that I've created. But I think it's interesting to talk about groups—particularly, as Ali will do later on, about what if things go wrong? What if this crisis cannot be contained, could we talk about the change in regime, and if that is the case how would it come about? And obviously one of the major factors is the use of force, on one side or both. And Ali will talk about how that is likely to play itself out.
Again, also--two other points is the internal dynamics of the opposition. As we keep talking about the Green Movement, we all know that is a broad umbrella grouping. We have to consider all the different nuances about it. But again, I will try to highlight the features that are perhaps distinct, and the same is true for the regime, and some thoughts on prospects. So let me start with the key points and I think it is always important to bear in mind that erosion--that's support for the regime falling off has been been true since the days of the establishment of the Islamic republic in 1979.
So when we’re talking about the split, this is not new, there have always been splits. To give you one radical example of a split, is look at the existence of the Mujahiden-e Khalq in Iraq today. That was a revolutionary organization that was part of the Islamic Revolution of 1979. What happened to it, it was chased out, and ended up in Saddam Hussien’s Iraq. And some its members you know, happen to live there today stayed. And you can find more examples of that. So the revolution was a broad umbrella organization like the Green Movement to a some extent is. And what happened to it the last thirty years is it split off. You have parts of it walking away from it, parts of it later getting incorporated, but the fact is, that the reality of division within the Islamic republic has always existed. But we do have this intensity now that we’ve never seen before, and that’s the question that makes us all wonder. Since it’s so intense, can it continue the way it has since June of last year?
A couple of the—or three of the main points that I want to mention here is that- largely you can look at the two major political camps here. Let’s call one of them the hardliners, fundamentalists, principleists, whatever you want to call it--but they label themselves principlists, as you know, but let’s just call them the “hardliners” for the sake of this presentation, and let’s call the opposition the “reformists”. Well what I think happened, and if you go back and look at 2004 parliamentary elections are pretty significant. What you see is the regime and all the institution that it has under their control try from the reelections of 2004, to push the reformists off the political stage. They do that pretty clearly by disqualifying 2½ thousand reformists candidates. A lot of people who were sitting in the reformist parliament in 2004 were disqualified from running. So they set the stage for this crisis as early as 2004. Then you have the 2005 elections where the hardliners again back the candidate, the mayor of Tehran- Mahmoud Ahmendinajad, the IRGC—the Islamir Revolutionary Gaurds Core were a significant player from 2005. But another very significant reality of the 2005 elections, which we didn’t have in 2004, is the hardliners, and I’m talking about the supreme leader, Ali Khomeni here, and president Ahmedinajad, who became president after the elections. They went after one individual, and I know people disagree with this one, but to my mind this was a crucial factor, and that was Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, former speaker of the parliament and president, and currently still influential player. I think going after Rafsidinajad the way they did in 2005 changed the equation and made that reformist opposition much greater than it used to be. It used to be limited to what they called the “left clerical establishment”, the leftist ones, who had economic and political left views. But when they went after Rafsinijad, they put the center of Islamic Republic into that opposition of the hard-liners and I think that’s what changed the equation significantly, and by 2009 June elections of that year, year you have a much more vocal, an institutionaly capable opposition. You had people like Rafshinjani who were still part of this Islamic Republic, finding themselves in opposition to the hard lines.
I think that was crucial change from 2004 elections, and as we obviously know, it back fired. They over estimated their powers, I would include Khomeini and his supporters, and obviously Ahmadinajad supporters. They over stated their own powers, they've had to deal with the consequences ever since. So I talked about the surpise mobilization here that the regime has faced, but also another thing in this last bullet point here, second to last--is the significant fact that both sides in this confrontation have not gone all out. You have not seen people like Rafsinjani, or Muhammed Khatemi leading reformist, or Netva Nuri or others that we sort of associated being reformists being imprisoned. They have gone after them indirectly. They don't go after Rafsinjani, they go after his daughter. They don't attack him--well they do actually attack him personally, but they haven’t gone as far as putting him on house arrest, the way, for instance, Ayotollah Montazeri argued this happened to XXXXX (inaudible). My point is we have to bare in mind, because I will get to this issue later, where is the end objective for both sides? They’re trying to figure out how they’re going to get themselves out this mess, but they haven’t gone for the civil war option, if I can simply put it like that. Again, state and opposition are intertwined. This is very significant, you do not have one opposition right now that is clearly outside the state machinery. There are two oppositions—and I have a point on that, one is on the house arrest—that's Mir Hossein Mousavi, the other one is operating in institutions- and that includes a whole host of individuals who are still in postions of power, although limited, they still have positions of power, and obviously crucial players, like Rafsinijad. Just to refresh everyone’s memory about what the elections of 2009 were about, because this is significant particularly if Ahamedinijad and Khomeni- the hard liners come out of this crisis, surviving, coming out of this crisis intact. These issues we have here on this list that we're planning the factor into 2009 elections will remain significant. Some of them could become more important than others, but they will all remain significant - it's the economy, what’s going to happen to the oil money—it's the issue of corruption and favoritism.
Ali has done some excellent work in terms who Ahmedinijad has brought into positions of power, who he has, as a result, sidelined, is he going to continue that process. You got the issue of social reform-which is significant when you look at the composition of the Green Movement today, the youthfulness of the composition of the Green Movement. Foreign policy is very significant, although we don’t talk about it, but look at the nuclear issue, look at Iran’s position in Iraq, and so forth. But lastly here the point about again, Rafsinjani, I really want to emphasize this issue because I think one of the reasons I decided to this point here is, a couple of days ago when a leading anti-green movement clergyman came out and said, Ahmad Khatami said, 'we have to cool it down here a bit--we are getting to a stage where we might not be able to walk back'. That was something he said after Rafsanjani said, 'I will write a letter about one of his main critics and tell the world what I think about this individual, and what I used to stand for back in the 80s'. Now, some friends colleagues say that I am over emphasizing Rafsanjani’s powers. But I think we shouldn't underestimate what he can still do. Let me quickly go back or go forward I should say, to some of the main drivers behind the protests. Again, the campaign set the stage for crisis, it really did. If you look a--and these are available by the way on YouTube for the Farsi speakers—I don't know if they put subtitles on them, but if you go out there you can see how colorful this campaign was, I mean it was something Iran never seen in its entire history. So the campaign and how vicious the Ahemdinajad camp was in terms of going after the three candidates, faced the incumbent which was very colorful, it set the stage for crisis. Then arguably, the day after elections, Ayatollah Khomeni came out and said before the election results were announced, and said this was a divine blessing. The nation moves on, the election results was going to be in favor of Ahmedinijad. Again that was a very significant move on his part, which created this uproar, which also made very quickly that it went from being a anti-Ahmedinijad campaign or movement to an anti-Khomeni movement, in many ways questioning the entire concept of an Islamic Republic in the constitution, because they felt that the constitution wasn't delivering.
That the whole thing, particularly the young generation that have been told for 30 years, that in 1979 that they get rid of one Shah, one dictator for democracy, well that was, in their eyes, proven to be a lie in June of 2009, because here was another dictator telling them that the elections really weren't that significant. Pushing limits- I want to emphasize this point because if you look at the latest trends coming out of Iran, we see the speeches of Mehdi Karoubi, we've read the letter of Mir Hossein Mousavi trying to take a step back from the brink, argueably. The question is what are they trying to achieve? Is it a tactical ploy, as the hardliners are saying? Or have they really decided they don’t have the powers to go all the way, they cannot fight the regime as it stands, they have to rethink their strategy, at least at a tactical level. This was a table I was referring to, and you can take some of these categories and change them, but I think roughly what you have here is elements that are staying with the regime for obvious reasons, I mean Ali Khomeni staying for the regime because he feels he represents the regime. You also have fundamentalist clergy, the IRGC, Ali will talk about, are very crucial because these are the guys with the guns. And if it came to a street fights, and leading up to a bloody revolution like Iran experienced in '79, IRGC will be a crucial player here, in terms of whatdecisions they will be making. As of today, as of January 2010, IRGC is firmly against the opposition, and if you listen to the senior commanders of the IRGC they will go all the way to crack down if that’s what they have to do. The opposition, and I deliberately put the clergy at the top because I see the clergy being elite. I know we put a lot of emphasis on the youth, on the protestors in the streets, and obviously that’s what sells for cameras. But I was talking about this with Ali before. And I've always made the point, look, Iran has limited, localized protests in '94, '99, 2001, 2003--what is it that’s different than 2009? What happened in 2009 that made it different? I think if you look at all the previous cases of limited upheaval and opposition against the regime, the difference here is that you have the clergy, part of the clergy, people like Mohammad Khatemi, Rafsanjani, and a number of others who are in the opposition. They were not in the opposition before. The students in the middle classes have obviously kept the momentum and arguably you could say that, people like Mousavi, were led to some extent by the protestors in the streets, that they felt energized or strengthened as a result of the volume of support they had. But when you look at the organization, when you look at how they were able to, for instance in December to bring the people out, I don't think that this was spontaneous. I will probably be the minority here, I think that organization had a lot to do with it to the party opposition, and and I see that organization tied to the clergy. Particularly the Khordad movement, who were in government between '97-2005.
You have other issues here, free media and I think the Diaspora played a role to a certain extent. The Diaspora, in terms of feeding about what's the worlds reactions to the events in Iran. Again that has been a factor. As I said, I see two oppositions, and you can look at that distinction that I have made, and sort of look at it as a weakness or a calculation. A weakness in the sense that the supreme leader, who argueably is still the most powerful player in Iran, thinks that he doesn’t’ have the powers to go after people like Rafsinjani. That's a weakness. Or it's a calculatio—he could go after Rafsinjani—he doesn’t want to. Again that would be significant- if we did know the answer, that would be a significant breakthrough, but we really don’t. But the fact is that there is that distinction. I don’t see any reason like Hashemi Rafsinjani should not be in the same personal situation as Mir Hossein Mousavi. I mean if you listen to what Rafsinjani says, pretty much saying if the people don’t want the supreme leader, he should go. Well why is that any different from Mir Hossein Mousavi's been saying? So why is there a distinction? Why do we have two oppositions? So, I’ve already hinted that Khomeni has to go, Khomeni has to listen. This is the latest—this is what we hear in December of 2009, with the latest bloody crack down to place. Why is the slogan changing? At least when you look at the statements of the leading reformist figures. My feeling is that, let me go to the next slide before I say that, my feeling is that the opposition also looks at the regime in largely two entities.
The pro-Ahmedinijad, the pro-Khomeni, they now have realized that several months into this crisis, they don’t have the muscle—the strength, capacity to mobilize and overwhelm the entire regime in its entirety, if that makes sense. Where they want to go is to create this split. And now they’re saying, the supreme leader, we are committed to you, we're comitted to the constitution, but give us, obviously this placid understanding would be, give us the lee way to go after Ahmedinijad, within the framework of the Islamic Republic. So this is out of—I guess, weakness. This is not because they feel Khomeini is the best option available to them, but seven months into it, this is all they probably could get away with. The reality is also, if you look at the ideology, of people like Ahmedinijad, and you look at the history of the supreme leader, the last 20 years of the supreme leader. But also if you look back, the man’s entire career on foreign policy, ideology and so forth. Also economic policy. There are certain similarities that he has with Ahmedinijad that he doesn't share, obviously, with the opposition. Ok, let me--because I know I got about two minutes. Just really some thoughts--by the way, if anybody wanted the slides here, I know I have written way too much here for a PowerPoint presentation, my apologies. Any body wants the slides, please let me know, or Kate and I will pass it on.
But final thought I wanted to sort of share with you is the issue of what would Khomeni do? I mean obviously, this is not Iraq, this is not some totalitarian set up where one individual has total power, and can see how to solve the outcome of this crisis, that’s not the case. He’s been influenced and shaped by events and I'm sure a lot of people have been speaking to him this year and to go this way or the other. But what would, I mean what are Khomeni’s options right now? I think again, my guess is, he is looking at the popular mobilization that has surprised him. But what has gotten him support Ahmedinajad the way he did in 2005-2009, that main issue, remains intact, which is his inherent suspicion that the ultimate objectives of the opposition, which is the reform of the constitution, reducing the powers of the supreme leade—that hasn't changed. And he knows that, and he knows even if the opposition today and saying 'please Mr. Supreme Leader, instead of backing up Ahmedinjad, can you just be neutral about it?' He knows that they’re saying it out of almost a sense of desperation it seems, as opposed to changing their political minds. But at the same time, he knows that Ahmedinijad has been an individual of mass, an impressive great number of enemies in the first administration. He’s got enemies across the spectrum, politically speaking in the clergy, and the economic class and so forth.
So I guess to some extent we can look at the next few months or year or so, there are some significant factors here that might shape it. The nuclear issue is more significant, the idea of more sanctions in Iran, I think nobody is seriously talking about military strikes against Iran’s stage, but that's not a factor. But sanctions could potentially become a factor. So Khomeni is going to look back there, and look at the performance of the Ahmedinijad government, and unless they can contain the opposition the way that they seem to have manage, at least since the last set of protests in December. If the regime can stay intact that way, then I think you will give Ahmedinijhad a chance to carry on. But I also think he’s a force, he’s an individual, his principlist people, he would be more than happy to trade with the opposition to keep the regime intact. We have these protests coming on the 11 of February, promised let’s see how significant they are going to be anything like they had in December. That’s going to tell us quite a bit about the momentum of the opposition movement, at least in the grass root level, but we are definitely seeing a change of tone among the senior opposition figures from going to saying supreme leader, maybe it’s time to go step aside so we can deal with Ahmedinijad within the parliament, within the framework of the Islamic Republic, which you know has a different significant point to it within itself. Which is--the opposition today is committed by and large, the leadership of it, to the idea of the Islamic republic, which is not most of these young supporters in the streets are comitted to. There's no doubt in my mind that they want the entire regime to change, but they don’t have the tools at their disposal to do anything—to bring that about, and I think as a result, the opposition even though they know what kind of leaders that they would want is what they would have, and that’s what they’re going to stick with that. And I think with that, I will leave it up to Ali to tell us about the nightmare scenarios of bloody upheavals that need to be contained. So thanks so much for listening.
Ali Alfoneh:
Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen and thank you very very much for your kind invitation and thank you for providing me with this opportunity to share my analysis with you. Approximately 31 years ago when grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned to Iran from his exile in Paris, the first place in Tehran he held a speech was the Behesht-e Zahra cemetery. In the Behesht-e Zahra cemetery, Grand Ayatollah Khomeini held a very very important speech in which he said, “every generation in Iran should have the right to be the master of its own destiny.” Grand Ayatollah Khomeini said “maybe our fathers wanted the monarchy, maybe our grandparents wanted a monarchy. We want something else.” Now, the opposition movement in Iran today is quoting the late Grand Ayatollah Khomeini. They say every generation in the history of Iran should have the right to be the master of its own desitiny. Maybe our parents were active and engaged in an evolution which led to the collapse of the imperial regime, and to the creation of the Islamic Republic. We want something else. They are quoting no body else but the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Now, the opposition both inside Iran and outside Iran has been greatly energized because of the events of the past seven months. This is the worst crisis that the Islamic Republic of Iran leadership has gone through in its history. Not only is the regime engaged in a permanent state of crisis and fight against the opposition in the streets, it is also factionalized within itself, and there are inter-elite fights. That is what energizes the opposition and gives the opposition hope that it is actually possible to redo and duplicate the revolution which took place 31 years ago.
I honestly must say that I have a different view. I do believe that there are fundamental similarities between Iran the the crisis that the Islamic Republic is going through today and the crisis which eventually led to the collapse of the imperial regime, but there are also fundamental differences. So the subject of my discussion and presentation today is that of the differences and similarities—and please excuse me and I know that there are people here more knowledgable than me sitting in the audience, but the task was given to me to discuss this.
When it comes to similarities, I think the most fundamental similarity is the very fact that the Islamic Republic is going through a social revolution. Now whehter this social revolution may or may not lead into a political revolution, that's a different story. But the Islamic Republic of Iran is going through a social revolution. Very much like the social revolution that the Iranian society was going through in the 1960's and 70's. Beginning in 1963, with the White Revolution of the shah began a huge modernization program of Iran, which forever changed the Iranian society. Prior to 1963, the system—the political regime and society, served each other well somehow. You know, the imperial regime could survive forever and ever. Had it not changed the society, because that imperial regime was actually designed for a traditional society--which was not modern. But the his late imperial majesty—the shah of Iran—he started modernization program, which actually led to the undoing and collapse of the imperial regime. Why? --Because he changed the society, but he never managed to change the political system accordingly. Whenever you make a majority of Iranians able of reading and writing, you cannot tell them that there is one person in the country making all strategic and important political decisions in that country. That was the case with the shah. When you give the right of voting to Iranian women in 1963, you cannot tell them which candidate to vote for, and by the way bar candidates undesirable as seem from the part of the regime. When you make a majority of Iranians—city dwellers—you make a majority of Iranians in reality educated, well-informed middle class, you cannot preserve the system which was authoritarian and led by the shah himself. That was impossible, and that of course led to the revolution of 1979.
Now, most unfortunatley, the leaders of the Islamic Republic have not learned anything from the experiences of the imperial regime. And they are committing the exact same mistakes of his late imperial majesty. The differences between mentality and thought of Aytollah Khamenei and the shah are very small. The Islamic Republic of Iran has, in reality, continued many of the reform schemes of the shah of the 1960's. They just dressed it in Islamic garb. Now, before the revolution we had the literacy core—the Iranian soldiers doing their military service who had high school education—they were sent out to the smallest villages to teach the peasants to read and write. Now, that was the literacy core. After the revolution of '79 that was renamed the literacy jihad, right? Now it has an Islamic name. Before the revolution they had the health core, right?Now they have the health jihad—everything has become Islamic, everything is a holy struggle. But more often than not, it was the same type of organization that survived after the revolution and sometimes it was really the exact same individuals—in central administration and bureacracy—which were doing the rational descision making inside of Iran, and trying to do progress in Iran. This is, afterall, a country that is trying to develop—it's a developing country. And many of the programs of the shah continued after the revolution, with the result that today 60% of college students are ladies—that's a huge progress for a third world country. Today, a majority of Iranians are literate, can read and write—illiteracy rate is almost non-existant, very, very small, public health is fairly good—compared with our neighboring countries. A majority of Iranians have been living in big cities for the past 14 years. A lot of Iranians have access to news media, published news papers and magazines and journals. But also satellite transmisions outside the country into Iran--radio broadcasts and television, but of course, also the internet. There are a number of studies done here in America telling us that the second largest language on the internet is Persian. I don't know if it is true, but if it is true that is fantastic—it's a revolution. In reality that is a revolutionary deed. In other words the Islamic Republic of Iran, by continuing the social reform programs of the shah has revolutionized the Iranian society, has changed the Iranian society forever and ever. But the Islamic Republic, simultaneously, had failed to change the political system and the regime accordingly to fit the change conditions of life in the society. And the mismatch between a changed society and unchanged regime makes all the problems and frictions we are witnessing today.
Now, how did the shah's regime try to react to the revolution events of 1979, which eventually led to a political revolution? Now the social revolution had taken place in the 1960's and the beginning of 70's and it culminated in a political revolution in '79. How did they behave and how is the regime behaving today? And what are the differences and similarities? Let's do an actor analysis. What are the similarities between his late imperial majesty, the shah, and Ayotollah Khamenei today? Shah of Iran, he was sick because of cancer; he was incapable of making rational decision, and political decision making was concentrated in the hands of one single person, the shah. Ayotollah Khamenei is a different type. He has, at the same time, the same side of the coin—the bravado, the shah—but also inferiority complexes, you know—the shah also had because of the person that he was. There are also some rumors that he is also sick—and I hope that this is not true, I pray for the health of all Iranians, including Ayotollah Khamenei. But the big difference is, of course, that the Iranian Revolution is institutionalized. In other words, power is not concentrated in the hands of one person. Strategic decisions about survival or doom of a regime are not being taken by one single individual. Which at one point may lose faith in battle and just capitulate like the shah did. In other words, that is a very, very big difference.
The second big difference, of course, is the shah left Iran. He capitulated in reality and after which the command and control structure in Iran totally collapsed. The imperial army did not put up any significant opposition to the revolutionaries and the system was handed over, without a lot of bloodshed, to the new elites of the coming Islamic Republic. If you look at it in comparative perpective, the Iranian revolution was not among the most terrible and bloodiest revolutions in history of man kind, compared to Russian revolution or the French revolution—they were much more dramatic in many, many ways. The other issue, which is also interesting and is a big difference between how the imperial regime tried to manage the crisis and how the Islamic Republic is trying to manage the crisis is that his late imperial majesty wanted to blame his own, loyal servants for the ills of society. So from 1978 he began systematically arresting his own former cabinet ministers—cabinet ministers who he himself had appointed to serve him. Some of the prime ministers like the late Hoyveda, arresting him—he had served the shah for 15 years, loyally. He accused Mr. Hoyveda of being the corrupt individual who was to blame for all the ills of society back in the late 1970's. And you know, I can just go on and on and on mentioning the cabinet ministers who were arrested by the shah's police, just to put the blame of the ills of society on those cabinet ministers, rather than the person of the shah. The Islamic Republic is behaving in a very, very different way. Rather than arresting and blaming regime loyalists, it's actually promoting them. The Ayotollay Khamenei is not removing his support for Mr. Ahmadinajad, because he knows that the moment he removes support for Mr. Ahamedinijad he himself will be to blame, just like the shah was. No body in the Iranian public was satisfied with seeing a former prime minister, like Mr. Hoyveda put in jail. They said, well you know he was just executing your orders—the orders of the majesty of the king of Iran. And so then apparently Mr. Khamenei is not committing the same kind of mistakes because those mistakes of the shah, led to many, many loyal regime supporters actually abandoning the ship. Going abroad, not supporting the regime anymore and actually trying individually to make it reel with opposition, because they no longer believed that the regime was ready to support them. Ayotollah Khamenei is more clever in his approach. He is not abandoning his own people and those people who are within the regime supporting him are still sticking with him.
If you look at the arm forces in Iran in 1979 and the arm forces of the Islamic Republic today, there are fundamental differences. The imperial army of the shah was a politically, non-interventionist army. It was controlled by the civilian leadership—the very person of the shah. And it lacked a military leadership or general staff which was capable of—let's say, committing a coup d'etat—in cases of crisis in order to secure regime survival. The imperial-army was a politically, non-interventionist army. And also, the imperial army had not much in reality to benefit, from staging a coup d'etat and trying to get a hold of power. And the shah himself was against a military coup d'etat. The shah actually said that they should just--army was just tasked with the job of preserving territorial integrity of Iran, not to take power inside Iran—that was the logic and the mission of the Iranian army. Now what is the logic of the work of the Revolutionary Guards today? What is their mission? Well, the mission of the Revolutionary Guards as written in the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran is to preserve the nature of the regime. It is to protect the revolution and its achievments. In other words, if there is any movement, any threat against the ideological foudations of the regime, the Revolutionary Guards is expected and is mandated to—constitutionally--intervene and protect that regime's survival. That is the job of the Revolutionary Guards and there is a huge difference between the army of the shah and the Revolutionary Guards today. How about the regular military, you can ask. And it is a very good question. When I look at the regular military today, that actually reminds me of the army of '79, because that is also the regular military, which is the largest military institution in Iran. It's politically, non-interventionist, its basis is along the international borders of Iran. And even if they want to intervene in the political system, you can actually dilute their attempts by denying them gas to their cars so they cannot get into major population centers.
So what I do expect is in the worst case of the Iranian regular army, will probably maintain its neutrality. How about the police—the police of the shah and the police of the Islamic Republic of Iran? The police was fairly effective in smaller towns, in smaller cities, because the population is easier to control in smaller cities and villages. Everybody knows everybody and if somebody goes protesting against the regime then they know exactly where they live, who they are, what kind of families they belong to. In the big cities, the task force was, of course, much more difficult. He had seen a mix, I would say, of behavior of the police of the Islamic Republic, especially in big cities and especially in the big city of Tehran, we say a number of cases. I have counted now 9 cases of police officers capitulating to protesters in the street clashes. Capitulating—you can find it on Youtube—it's visible. And that was a catastrophy, of course, for the image of the police, when you have police members capitulating to the public when they're saying that they don't want to shoot at them. And there have also been reports on cases where the police officers did not actually perform the orders of their superiors—to take aim at the protesters and shoot them. That is a very, very significant issue, that the police did not want to do so.
But then you have the basij militia. How was the performance of the basij militia—because the basij militia is also something new, which did not exist in the 1979 revolution. Basij militia is fundamentally an youth organization—like Hitler youth in Nazi Germany or the Komsomol in the Soviet Union. They're organization is—I would say—looser, than the ones in Nazi Germany or Soviet Union, or let's say the Red Brigades in China. But there is still some kind of organization which works very, very closely with the Revolutionary Guards. They're organization has performed extremely badly at neighborhood level—what does it mean? Neighborhood level means, if I want to become a member of the basij militia—this youth organization, there is only one place I can go and apply for membership. And that is the local mosque where I live, in my own address. So I go to the local mullah and there is usually a representative not from the basij, but from the Revolutionary Guards. They make a social background analysis about me, about each applicant at neighborhood level. Their intelligence is very, very good. If you contact the central director of the basij in Tehran, they don't know anything about me--they don't know who I am. But at neighborhood level, they know who my father is, they know who my mother is, they know my entire family, they know my family history. So they know exactly what type of people they can recruit at neighborhood level. And ideally, the basij members should protect the security and stability at neighborhood level.
In other words, if there is any revolutionary movement, if there are regime protesters against the regime at my neighborhood, I'm expected as a basij member to beat up my neighbor in order to secure security. The basij has been a fiasco, with regard to neighborhood security because I think Iranians in general are too decent to beat up their own neighbors. It's very, very difficult. It takes a lot for somebody to beat up his or her own neighbors because they are politically different minded than you are yourself—that's very difficult. And therefore basij at neighborhood levels has been a fiasco. Neighborhood control was out of hand of the basij—it was difficult, it was impossible for the basij to mobilize it's own forces against protesters. What the basij was forced to do actually, and this is general (inaudible) former chief of the Revolutionary Guards unit in Tehran—he admitted that they were forced to do a lot of transportation into central Tehran of basij members from the peripheries of Tehran. In other words, they were not ready to beat up people in their own neighborhood, but when they operate in neighborhoods where nobody can recognize them, and they do not know the people and they are not emotionally engaged in the lives of these people, it is easier for them—psychologically to beat up protesters. And that was exactly what the basij members were doing in the protests. But there activities, again, were directed by the Revolutionary Guards.
The basij also has various branches—it is not just the basij. You have the student basij, you have the basij of the clerks, you have the basij of the secret service—you know, all sorts of proffesional groups in the Iranian society, they have their own basij or mobilization organization and they become members. And it is easier for Iranian citizens to become members of the not armed part of the basij organization because if you do not have a weapon you are not so dangerous for the regime's security. And ideally, the student basij is tasked with the job of neutralizing activities of dissident students at university level. So whenever there is a demonstration against the regime at universities, you have the university basij members trying to have a counter demonstration or beat up those students. That is, you know, ideally the function. Or if you have labor demonstrations somewhere, you have the labor basij having a counter demonstration to beat up those labor activists. Also that has been a total fiasco for the basij. Because more often then not, those people--individuals-- who became first place members of student basij or labor basij or clerical basij, they probably became members because of opportunistic reasons. And exactly because of opportunistic reasons, they are also ready to leave that organization. It's very difficult to beat up your own colleagues, you know—or your fellow students at universities, or at mosque, or where ever it is that you're working. So the basij experience for the Iranian society has not been as successful as the Konsomol in the Soviet Union or Hitler youth was in Nazi Germany, not at all. Basij has been a fiasco. And when ever you hear the Iranian regime talk about millions and millions of members of the basij militia, gauranteeing the security of Islamic Republic of Iran you should be very, very skeptical. That organization is disfunctional and it is disfunctional because of the social fabric and structure of Iranian society. We are brought up in families, big families and I as a basij member would know that some of those people aren't going to beat, maybe my own family members. It's very difficult, very, very difficult.
So what instrument of power does this leave for the regime? The Revolutionary Guards. In reality, the Islamic Republic of Iran—should it come to a terrible conflict with the opposition, has only the Revolutionary Guards to rest its security upon. But unfortunately, the Revolutionary Guards has great incentives to protect the regime. Not because the Revolutionary Guards is very much in love with the regime, but because they have huge economic incentives to do so. They have political incentives to do so. If you look at the government of Mr. Ahmadinajad, 13 out of 21 cabinet ministers are former officers of the Revolutionary Guards. If you look at the economic life of the Islamic Republic, increasingly—most businesses are led and run by the Revolutionary Guards. The Revolutionary Guards is not just a military institution, but also an economic enterprise. A huge economic empire. And even the religious and spiritual speed of life in Iranian society is being infiltrated by the Revolutionary Guards. You of course know all these stories about the essence and the presence of the imam of the era and that kind of stuff. Well, you see—that is one part of Shia religion and the Shia thoughts. That we are awaiting the coming and the re-emergence of the imam of the era—the Shia messiah who is going to secure the salvation of man and start world revolution.
The Revolutionary Guards is instrumentally using the belief of the people in existance of a 12th imam, a savior of a messiah, for its own ends. And what they do---somebody like general, chief of staff, general Firouzabadi, he wrote an open letter to the imam of the era in one of the newspapers in Iran. It amounts to one of the generals in America wanting to write to the messiah in Washington Post complaining about one political act or the political life of the United States. I do note that there are politicians here in America that believe that they are in contact with divinity, but we have that in Iran too. But the Revolutionary Guards has great economic, political and even religious-ideologic incentives to protect the regime and is also ready to do so. As long as the Revolutionary Guards is not removing its support for the regime, I do not see a terrible revolution and eventual regime change in the short term. But in the mid and longer term, we also know that it is impossible for the regime just to operate and rule societies by force. It is impossible—it is not possible as I see it. So in the longer term, Ayotollah Khamenei and the regime must look for different options, but by then it may be too late. Because even now, I know that there are some people in Washington talking about regime change in Iran, but believe me the regime has already changed. The regime has already changed. It is no longer a theocracy, it is a military dictatorship. Thank you.
Kate Seelye:
Thank you Ali and Alex—sorry to cut you short, it's also fascinating. We're going to open the room to questions—we've got about 20 minutes. I might take the privilege of asking the first question regarding regime change, given as there is an ongoing debate--and why don't you both come stand up here—about whether the US should support regime change. We've seen Richard Hass (51:15) calling for it, Bob Kagen at Carnegie. What do you think about US support for regime change viable and wise, what would your recommendations be?
Alex Vatanka:
You know, the way I look at it in terms of regime change right now is I guess—I'm going to give you some of my biases here—somebody whose got sympathy for the opposition, what good would it do. And I listened to some of the statements, and obviously we still have the issue of military strikes against on the table according to some sanctions and so forth. If I could just point to few of the main issues that are being discussed and tell you what I think about them. Military strikes—I really don' t think anyone is taking that seriously at this stage, unless we find out that something more sinister is going on as far as the Iranian nucleur program is concerned, and we're not there yet. In terms of sanctions, we have the fascist issue of China and Russia blocking further comprehensive sanctions against Iran for years. The latest statements—the last meeting they held in New York only reaffirms Chinese and Russian determination not to go along with the Western terms of what to do with Iran in the fourth round of sanctions. One of the things that I would hope would become discuss more is the practical measure that the US can take to help the Iranian opposition. And one of them has already been discussed, as far as I understand in December, which is the issue of giving them power—the opposition, to go around government control in terms of mobilizing, in terms of getting the message out, and defiltering—all of the thigns that would make life easier for an Iranian oppositionist to operate in cyberspace. What can the US do to help them in that front—these are the kinds of practical issues that might actually have a positive impact for the opposition. But just talking about regime change, I mean what I was trying to point out was that the regime is the one that's having a fight inside it. So if you get Rafsinjani in, you still have kind of the regime that you've faced for the last 30 years. Well, what are we talking about, we're not talking about brand new alternative here, as I said the people on the streets would like a brand new alternative—majority of them, I think would, but we don't have that alternative on the table right now. So, regime change becomes trickier, although if we look at practical issues, there are things that the US could do.
Ali Alfoneh:
I fully agree, I do agree that one should first and foremost energize broadcasting efforts to the Islamic Republic of Iran. If there is one thing that dictorial societies are afraid of is free discussion and free debate. Why don't we give the opportunity of free discussion and debate to the Iranian public? It would be totally wrong if people here in Washington DC tried addressing various problems in cities of Iran. But if Iranian public has access to free media uncontrolled and uncensored by the Iranian government, that would be a very, very useful tool. BBC Persian is taking up that job. Voice of America Persian is improving its programs, and I would like very much to see 24 hours broadcast to Iran. I would like very much to see better and more efficient broadcasting to Iran so people do not need to use satellite, or you know—sophisticated machinery to receive the programs. Why don't they have access to television—Voice of America broadcast from their own normal television. And of course you know, the internet issue is a very important one. The next one that I think is very important also is the fact that the US government has also the opportunity to weaken instruments of power of the Islamic Republic of Iran. First and foremost, the Revolutionary Guards. We know that the Revolutionary Guards is such a huge economic actor in Iranian society. And I believe that Secretary Clinton's approach of targeting very intelligently and directly those assets, economic assets of the Revolutionary Guards is very good way of trying to change the behavior of the Revolutionary Guards. I’m not sure if it is going to work, but if we do not try, we will never know.
Question from Kurdish Representative in Washington:
My question is in regards to regime change, and possibility of regime change and why it’s not so much, as you said, it’s not a possibility right nowto change the regime. You mentioned that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, or other security forces are able to mobilize forces from the peripheries of Iran to dissenters and thats been a major problem for the demonstrators in central Iran to combat these forces coming from the outside. But we know for a fact that regime change is on the table, and policy for so long and we know for a fact that the have been a lot of assistance been provided to these things, when there really hasn’t been much affect. But is there a problem with the opposition and the Green Movement and the leaders? That the perfories are not supportive of the opposition and the administration centrally, and whether maybe speaking for the rights of the ethnic minorities and the people surrounding Iran who make the bulk of Iran’s population, whether they can actually lead them to and protest as well as having a nation-wide protest instead of just protest oriented or confined to the central part of Iran?
Alex Vatanka: My quick observation on the issue of the ethnic minorities in Iran as you point out, you know the non-Persians and the non-Shias happen to live in the peripheries and the border regions, that is true. And if you look--historically it is true whenever Iran, the central government of Iran has been weakened, we saw that during second World War, we saw that also in ’79, whenever central government is weakened there’s a tendency by militant groups who have sucessionist agendas to try and see if they can tap into the chaos and break away or score political points. I haven’t seen anything that I can tie directly with the upheaval and relating to the election. But another poing I mentioned about ethnic minorities tying into is the issue of popularity of Ahmedinajad is it seems as statistics from Iran are showing that he’s one of the--argued, the least popular of presidents particularly among the minorities; particularly where he scored the least in terms of percentage, with Sistan and Baluchestan. I think Baluchestan, Sunni impoverished providences of southeast Iran scored--his life came under attack, there were two assassination attempts on him. His office was attacked, certainly does have a shortage of capital with the ethnic minorities. One of the issues that Ali was referring to before was the whole concept of Imam of Era, the Mahtis and the Shiites has been a major driver in the presidency of Ahmedinijad. If you are a Sunni or even if you, by the way, are a sort of strict Shiia, some of the political statements and the world views of Ahmedinijad will obviously come as a bit of a nasty surprise to you. But I also find a point in this, which is you know, perhaps more realistic than anything else I've said, is the basic bread and butter issue: money doesn’t get to do issues within the border regions the way its stays in Tehran, or in big cities. Ahemdinijad does have some support, and this all despite Ahmedinijad being the one president who’s had more trips to the providences than anyone else. I mean he ignores the big cities, he goes to the providences as much as he can, and he still has problems. That tell you something about it.
Ali Alfoneh: I have a strikingly different approach to your question, sir. Whenever the territorial intent of Iran is in danger, you see the factor of the entire public rallying around the flag. You know we are deeply concernced of the idea of Iran splitting into several countries. So whenever we see minorities demanding their rights, Iranian—civilians and their civic rights, that’s great for everybody. But nobody can protest that. And you can see actually that the Mr. Karoubi for example, in his campaign he addressed the issue, of not only the ethnic minorities, but also the religious minorities. The issue of the highest, so did the late grand Ayatollah Montazeri, a Shia religious scholar, who said that if the Islamic Republic of Iran issues ID’s for Bahai members, the Bahais should also enjoy the rights of Iranian citizens. So if you approach it from that angle, you can have the Iranian public with you. But if there is talk about secession, that would be counterproductive. So would in reality also be military strikes—I would say that military strikes would be a great help for the current government of the Islamic Republic, because it would rally the public around the flag.
Question from Patrick Klauson:
Ali you give us an excellent account of why the senior leadership of the revolution in regard has a financial interest, and ideological interest, in the continuation of the revolution. But could you please address the question of the ordinary, enlisted people in the revolutionary guard and to what extent do you think that those who are composed of conscripts, and it’s interesting, that as far as I can tell, the last time the Islamic Republic relied upon ordinary revolutionary guard troops to put down an urban unrest was (inaudibale) in 1994 when the unit in question refused to move. And, so what do you think would be the reaction of the enlisted people, especially the conscripted, in the revolutionary people in the guard, if they were asked to play this kind of repressive role?
Ali Alfoneh: Right, we know something about recruitment techniques of the Revolutionary Guards, and we do know that the people becoming members of the revolutionary guards and enlisting as revolutionary guards members has been among them we see an over representation of highly ideological motivated besieged members. So it is not the ordinary Iranians, it is not the Revolutionary guards, maybe ethnically, fairly represented of Iranians in the society and maybe middle class based army. But there is some overrepresentation of the besieged members, who have increasingly become members of the revolutionary guards are recruited through that system. You can see that in their own announcements that the revolutionary guards in its recruitment techniques gives preferences to former besieged members. So that’s one part of the story. The second part of the story is actually in more accordance to your analysis. And that is the very fact that at demonstrations and protests you do not see so many people wearing revolutionary guard uniforms. More often than not they wear civilant clothes. Why? Because the revolutionary guard as a military force, especially if the revolutionary guards has the ambition of becoming the rulers of Iran in the future, do not want to depict themselves as a brutal, repressive organization. They want to preserve the image of themselves as those that liberated Horum Shahr; In other words those who liberated Iranian cities captured during the Iran-Iraq war. That is the myth that any military organization wants to preserve, of course. So the revolutionary guards is not exactly willing to risk that. So, they may have different calculations, but when it comes to obeying or not obeying orders, if the revolutionary guards has so much to win in the end, especially at the situation where civilian leadership is factionalized, is going into pieces. And in reality the revolutionary guards can become the Algerian military Khonta of Iran, dividing the oil money. Why should they hesitate?
Alex Vatanka: Quickly just to add on this, one thing, and I know Ali has given this some serious thought and analysis. We shouldn’t look at about 150 thousand IRGC members as a united entity. There are divisions within the IRGC, and I would extend that to the armed forces in general as a question of quality, more so in the Iranian case, than quantity. So, 145 thousand, they could certainly add in terms of numbers to it, they have chosen to go with the besiege when it comes to quantity to try and sort of shock and awe the enemy, saying we can have--I've seen outrageous figures that they can mobilize 10 million besiegers, there's no evidence on this planet that they can justify such a claim. But that's what the regime says. But they really have cut back in terms of conscriptions or services from 24 months to 20 months I believe it is now. IRGC are the ones that are spending money, both in terms of training, equipment and so forth. And the question obviously there—as as a return one would suspect that they'd want more loyalty out of you. As Ali pointed out in the recent unrest, we've seen no case of IRGC being in the forefront of protestors—there hasn't really been a need. If the day came, and there’s a need then a question of going back to what Patrick said is--what are they going to be asked to do? To beat somebody in the head is different than shooting someone in the head. The question is what will the regime ask them to do and then I don’t really think anybody can sit here, or sit in Iran for that matter and predict how that core will react, those sort of orders.
Question from Bob Dryfus, The Nation: You didn’t mention in your discussion about political factions and all that in Iran, the sort of--what I would call it, the non-revolutionary guard principlists, people like the Arashanys, people in Parliament, there was a lot of churning among conservatives in the parliament who were kind of grumpy about Ahmedinijad on a number of things, cabinet members and things like that. Have they just all submerged now because of the repression? Or, is there any possibility of these guys and Rafsinjani and the reformists kind of creating some kind of popular front, kind of alliance, or is that out of the question?
Alex Vatanka: Very quickly, to my mind, I would divide the opportunists class as Ali referred to them before, all opportunists' class, and I include Rafsinjani in this class who’s now finding himself, he was pushed in that direction, but is now with the opposition—there's many indications that he doesn't like where he is, but that's life. He's been pushed in that direction. The new opportunist class you can talk about the Larijani brothers, the three of them and others, who you can say—I try and put “neutral”, but what does neutral mean? These people are arguably on the defense. And, I would say that there’s one major driver that pushes them this way or the other, is what their supreme leader wants them to do. So we see Larijani going against Ahmedinijad’s government or going against the opposition based on what we hear commonalities between supreme leaders’ office. People are looking at their position in the “nizam”, in the regime totally tied into the future, the survival of the supreme leader. You can call them opportunists, I would.
Ali Alfoneh: Mr. Ali Larigani, as you of course know, speaker of the parliament was born in Nijaf. He is an Iraqi-Iranian. And he was a follower of Ayotallah Shah, the former head of judiciary. The Iranian-Iraqis who were expelled out of Iraq in 1979-1980, count approximately 250 thousand people. So Mr. Larinjani's main network is 250 thousand Iranians who were expelled out of Iraq in 1979-1980—quarter of a million people. They are overrepresented in the security services, in the intelligence industry because the system trusted them more in the 1980s, more than the Iranians—average Iranians. Because these Iraqis knew that if the Islamic Republic became a failure, they had nowhere else to go. So they are overrepresented in the security services and they are influential. Part of the bazaar in Tehran is controlled by these people, but their influence in the revolutionary regards is not so strong. Mr. Larinjani considers himself the next president of Iran. He generally believes at some point, Supreme leader Khomeni is going to appoint at him. And Mr. Larinjani would again not at all mind if supreme leader, at some point abandons Ahmedinijad--allows the parliament to start a process against Ahmedinijad, not because of political reasons, but because of economic mismanagement. At some point there’s a vote of “no confidence” for Ahmedinijad and Mr. Larinjani becomes the savior of the nation. And that’s the way Mr. Larinjani thinks. He is a what I would say non-opportunistic, but all politicians have to be opportunistic to varying degrees. I consider Mr. Larajani a non-populist conservative, rather than Mr. Ahmedinijad who is the populist. Another candidate that is very interesting ss Tehran mayor, Mr. Gholibof, who is a former revolutionary guards member. So, these two characters are certainly working against Mr. Ahmedinijad, trying to convince the supreme leaders that Ahmedinijad is not an asset but a liability for the regime.
Alex Vatanka: One quick point Bob, the sort of centrists. Look at the case of Muhsin Rezai, former long time, 16 year IRGC commander, who ran against Ahemedinijad. Look at the reaction that he generated when he asked for reconciliation. He said you hardliners, and you opposition come together otherwise, the entire Islamic Republic will collapse. Look how he was treated by then hardliners. The hardliners are the ones that want to push an issue in either that camp opposition i.e. support the US, Israel and the rest, or you’re with us. So, I think the center in Iranian politics right now, at least going by the Rezai case, has had a tough time to express themselves.
Question from Vijay Alakrani, MEI member: My question is about the Kurds—the Kurds in Iraq and in Turkey have a very strong identities as Kurds, and Iran has quiet a Kurdish population. What does that stand—otherwise well integrated Iranian society or do they have alienation and defensiation in that the Kurds have in Turkey and Iraq?
Alex Vatanka: Quickly, I mean, you're right—10 percent of population is Kurdish. About seven million major feature is that not—I guess—are they not Persian? Although they're very close ethnically and linguistically to the Persian majority, but they also happen to be Sunnis. But they're not that religious. They're also Shia's in the south in the Iran province. The thing that I say about the Kurds is—again, we had a question relating to the Kurds before—I haven't seen—I'd love to hear what Ali has to say about this—I haven't seen any tendancies lately that represent an escalation of that's always existed in Kurdish provinces or Kurdish populated areas of Iraq. Tendancy that represents a militancy in Iraq, trying to take advantage of the situation. I haven't seen that. I would think that that would much more related to what happens in Iraqi-Kurdistan than what happens in Iran. I think that what happens in Iran economically goes down the hill, in years to come. And what happens on the other side is nothing but sort of rosy—the Iranian Kurds, because that is again—relatively impoverished part of Iran. They will look to the other side of the border and say, why not us. The Iranians know about this—supreme leaders spent 10 days hiking in Iranian-Kurdistan, spent 10 days hiking--he made a gesture, he announced that now the Sunni's can have the call for prayer in the Sunni tradition---and I cannot remember, he did something else. Oh yes—they're talking about a Sunni governor for the province of Kurdistan, so they know they have to be careful about what's happening there.
Ali Alfonseh: I totally agree. One book that you should look for is a book by Mr. Abdullah Hamza, speaker of the government of Khatami. He has written a very, very good book about ethnic minorities in Iran, published at the—I think, Catholic University of La Verne, answers your question. Very good book.
Question from Eait Mandell: Would you mind elaborating on the political schism between the pro-Ahmedinijad and the pro- Ayotollah Khomeni. Like, who are they, why would they rather support one versus the other, what benefits would they gain?
Alex Vatanka: I alluded to that, and I very simply put it this way—pro-Ahmedinijad are people who—and again Ali has done an excellent job on this, tracing the roots of some of these people. A lot of them go back in terms of their ties, careers to Ahmedinajad. Sort of they rose somewhat along aside him, if you look at the last 30 years. They joined forces in my mind, and I'm not sure if Ali would agree with this, but they joined forces with Khomeni, only after the great reformist victory of '97. When the reformist come to power, and you have some of these—relatively for Iranian context—sort of, in that context speaking radical demands, where they say they want reform. Some of the opposition or reformist, moving back between '97-2005 even talk about constitutional reform. They then merge forces with Khomeni, who is so scared of the ultimate aims of the reformists, that you have Khomeni, who really didn't have anything to do with—as far as I can see with Ahmedinajad—come together—it's a pragmatic marriage, but as I pointed out on the slide, if you look at the ideological connections, they're pretty strong too. If you compare to Khomeni's views and those he shares with the opposition.
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