Rene — Iran's Clerics Keep Wary Eye on 'Enemy'
Topic(s): Iran | Comments Off on Rene — Iran's Clerics Keep Wary Eye on 'Enemy'Iran’s Clerics Keep Wary Eye on ‘Enemy’
By BRIAN MURPHY
The Associated Press
09/03/05 13:24 EDT
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) – Every year in early November, a crowd assembles
outside the brick walls ringing the former U.S. Embassy. The script
for the anniversary rarely varies.
They chant against America. Then come cheers for the now-graying
radicals who seized the compound after the 1979 Islamic Revolution
and paraded their blindfolded hostages for the world to see. And – as
always in Iran – there are angry broadsides against other “enemies”:
Israel and a lesser cast of perceived Western foes.
Yet there’s never a mention of the most direct threat to the world’s
only modern-made theocracy: Iran’s expanding and restless middle class.
Nearly a decade of social and economic openings have allowed breathing
room for a new type of quasi-dissident. They come in the guise of
educated, ambitious and Western-friendly urban trend setters – from
real estate speculators profiting off demands for high-rise living to
cyber-pioneers satisfying Iran’s ravenous Internet appetites. Their
common bond is often a distaste for the all-pervasive controls of
the rulings clerics.
But that’s as far as it has gone.
Iran’s middle class has remained on the sidelines during sporadic
street protests since the late 1990s. They did not see upheaval in
their interest – as long as the regime kept its hands off their bubble
of consumerism and comfort that includes shopping trips abroad and
four-wheel-drive behemoths fed by Iran’s 38-cent-a-gallon gas.
Now, however, the middle class is nervous.
Iran’s reformers were humiliated in June presidential elections,
which produced a new hard-line president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He
took office in August and put together a cabinet that even some
conservatives fear will dry up freedoms and escalate confrontations
with the West over Iran’s nuclear program and its influence with
majority Shiite factions in neighboring Iraq.
How Iran’s middle class responds remains the big wild card and
has far-reaching implications for religion, politics and economic
relationships across the Muslim world and beyond.
“A new round and style of battles are ahead,” said Iranian political
analyst Davoud Hermidas Bavand, who has studied Iran’s social
trends. “Everyone feels it moving in this direction. But no one can
predict whether it will be a big bang or a gentle evolution.”
There are no serious cracks in the theocracy and none are seen on
the immediate horizon.
What’s at stake – at least for the moment – is the comfort level for
the clerics and the awesome portfolio they control: an elite militia
outside the normal armed forces, a nuclear program that rattles the
West, missiles capable of reaching anywhere in the Middle East,
unrivaled influence over Shiite Muslims in Iraq and the taps for
OPEC’s No. 2 oil producer.
Continued pressure from the middle class would act as an important
counterweight. But that would require reformers to regroup and find
new ways to make their voices heard now that the elected leadership –
the presidency and parliament – are under the thumb of conservatives.
If reformers stay divided and rudderless, however, Iran’s clerics
will have their freest hands since before the election in 1997 of
reformist President Mohammad Khatami.
“The middle class is the key in our fight for more democracy,”
said Saeed Hajjarian, who served as a top adviser to Khatami and was
left partially paralyzed following an assassination attempt in March
2000. “If they are silent, the enemies of democracy can move ahead. If
the middle class speaks out, they cannot be ignored. It’s that simple.”
But even to define Iran’s current middle class is no easy task.
It runs from remnants of the pre-revolution elite who didn’t join the
exodus in the 1980s to new entrepreneurs cashing in on skyrocketing
property values in Tehran and on looser import-export rules needed
to fill Iran’s technological gaps. For them, identity often revolves
around status: apartments in leafy north Tehran, vacation villas
on the Caspian Sea and parties where cocktails are served and women
trade Islamic coverings for sleeveless tops and miniskirts.
Their children push even harder – lampooning hard-liners on blog sites
and shrinking women’s once-dowdy public outfits to figure-hugging
tunics and colorful head scarves that show as much hair as they
conceal.
It has become possible because the theocrats and their loyalists have
been on strategic retreat for years.
They never gave up their limitless power, but the reformist momentum
led by Khatami was too strong to stifle. The theocrats looked the
other way as rules bent. Instead, the regime favored pinpoint strikes:
closing many reformist newspapers and coming down hard on student
demonstrations.
The balance began to tip back toward the conservatives last year. The
clerics used one of their most potent weapons: the ability to decide
who can run for elected office. Nearly all credible pro-reform
candidates were blocked from the parliament race in February 2004.
The blackballed lawmakers broke taboos by directly criticizing Supreme
Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose supporters believe his authority
comes directly from God. That opened the door for unprecedented
Khamenei-bashing on the streets.
This year’s presidential election followed the same pattern. More than
1,000 candidates sought a place on the ballot, but just eight were
cleared – bringing denunciations of election-rigging by Washington
and others. Later, some of the defeated candidates alleged the regime
used its muscle, including the Revolutionary Guards and vigilantes,
to manipulate voters and results in favor of Ahmadinejad.
The 49-year-old mayor of Tehran became a ready-made hero for the
underdog. He promises “economic justice” in a country blessed with
oil and gas riches but dragged down by deep pockets of poverty,
unemployment that may exceed 30 percent, and an economy that serves
to enrich and empower the so-called “mullahcrats.”
“Here is a state that’s been a theocracy for more than a
generation. The ruling mullahs have a track record that they can be
judged by,” said Mehrzad Boroujerdi, political and religious researcher
at Syracuse University.
“In the rest of the Islamic world, militants and Islamists present
a virgin alternative. They say, ‘We can solve all the economic,
social and political problems.’ It’s a seductive message that many
people are listening to. In Iran, the mullahs are the establishment
and can’t hide behind these claims of being the saviors.”
But he added: “Until the moment that the middle class is ready to
take the risks and pour into the streets, nothing much will happen.”
So will they?
If the past decade is a guide, the answer is probably not soon.
Many Iranians watched in awe as recent popular demonstrations took
down leaders in Ukraine, drove out Syrian forces from Lebanon and
stood up against Egypt’s authoritarian government. But similar
impulses for high-stakes confrontation remains largely buried among
pro-reform Iranians.
The reasons often cited center on the potential risks, such
as a bloody response from the military guardians of the Islamic
establishment. Others believe Iran still hasn’t recovered from the
emotional toll of the revolution.
In 2003 – after another student-led protest flared and fizzled –
one of the top activists complained the middle class failed to join
their uprising or support it. He blamed a lack of leadership. “They
speak of reforms and freedoms, but do little other than talk,” said
Mojtaba Najafi, a leader of the pro-reform Islamic Association at
Allameh University in Tehran.
Fast-forward to the fallout after Ahmadinejad’s victory. The complaints
are the same.
“It’s time for bravery from the middle classes,” said Parastoo
Dokouhaki, a women’s rights activist whose blog is popular with Iran’s
young middle class. “They have the power to change this country.”
But a former press officer in Khatami’s administration believes Iran’s
middle class is still too dependent on contracts and largesse from
the Islamic state.
“They don’t have the kind of independence to behave like a real
middle class,” said Nader, who requested only his first name be
published because he fears a crackdown by Ahmadinejad’s hard-line
supporters. “They are afraid of anarchy and the risk of losing their
lifestyle.”
At least one former wounded political figure is hoping to harness
the middle class and change the character of the longest-running cold
war in the Middle
East.
Mahdi Karroubi, a former parliament speaker and adviser to
the theocracy, said he planned to create a new pro-reform
political movement, the National Trust, from the ruins of the
election. Karroubi’s combative style has already won him admirers –
including many who were disillusioned by Khatami’s cautious political
manners.
Karroubi bitterly complained that he was a casualty of election abuses
intended to boost Ahmadinejad. Karroubi took his grievance directly
to the top – accusing Khamenei of condoning “coup-like” acts to fix
the elections.
Elias Hazrati, a co-founder of Karroubi’s party, said it’s aiming
squarely at the middle class and others outside the “elite” circles
of intellectuals and full-time activists.
“Focusing just on the elite is a weak point of the Iranian political
parties,” he said.
Still, Ahmadinejad’s rise showed that middle-class Iranians can be
roused if they feel their livelihoods and Western-looking lifestyles
are in danger.
“Down with religious fascism,” protesters cried during the last days
of the campaign. Some of the activists came directly from the office
carrying briefcases and wearing neckties – a symbol of middle class
disdain for hard-liners who consider ties part of Western cultural
infiltration.
“I even put on a headband with words supporting (reforms),” said
Shahriar Abbasi, a 35-year-old public relations executive. “When I
came back I felt as an 18-year-old, not me.”
“I do not believe in violence,” he added. “But I think it’s different
when the violence is to protect your rights. And I am sure that in
coming years I will be need to stand up and protect them.”
Shareholders on the Tehran Stock Exchange also vowed to resist any
changes to curb the small but growing capital markets. On the eve
of the June election, a newspaper carried a message from 18 music
companies. It paid homage to the Beatles with a double-entendre aimed
at anyone trying to roll back reforms: “Let it be.”
“After the Islamic Revolution, the leaders pushed everyone to
be religious,” said Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a cleric who served as
Khatami’s vice president until last year. “Now the people are pushing
the leaders to be democratic.”
Some of the region’s key showdowns hang in the balance.
Iran is the political polestar for Shiite Muslims, who broke from the
majority Sunnis over disputes on leadership after the death of the
Prophet Mohammad in 632 and now represent between 10 percent to 15
percent of the world’s 1.2 billion Muslims. But numbers don’t tell
the full story. Iran has crucial influence in Iraq and, with it,
newfound influence over the entire Islamic world.
Iraq’s majority Shiites include elements favoring an Iranian-style
system. But mainstream Shiite leaders have joined the U.S.-protected
government to draft a post-Saddam Hussein political framework. A
referendum on the proposed constitution is scheduled for Oct. 15,
but the road to the ballot is complicated by Sunni opposition and
clashes between Shiite factions.
The West, meanwhile, is pressing Iran to shed full light on its
nuclear ambitions. Iran claims it seeks only power-producing
reactors. Washington alleges that Iran also is pursuing a nuclear
weapons program that could redraw the strategic landscape of the
Middle East and could open dangerous nuclear channels to radical
groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas, which have received Iranian help.
With oil prices up, Iran is soaking up huge profits and international
markets are following Ahmadinejad’s pledges to exert more oversight
on the 4 million-barrel-a-day production.
“Ahmadinejad’s voters are the poor and struggling. They couldn’t
care less about the color of a head scarf or Internet access or the
other things that worry the middle class,” said Ray Takeyh, a senior
fellow of Middle East studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in
Washington. “This is Iran’s big divide.”
It doesn’t take much to see it.
The tour starts in Jamshidieh Park on the northern fringes of Tehran.
Here – amid green terraces cut into the mountainside – families
unload picnic lunches from shiny SUVs. Lovers flirt and kiss in the
shade of sweet-smelling pine and eucalyptus. Children race by on
mountain bikes. Teenage girls listen to a mix of Persian music and
Britney Spears.
The evening call to prayer begins across the city below. No one in
the park pays much attention.
“The common values we had years ago as Iranians are fading,” said
university student Armin Salmasi, whose family lives in a middle
class enclave in north Tehran. “People are angry at religion because
authorities use it as a tool to control people.”
A few miles away, a group of men are filing into the Al-Hossein
mosque. The air is heavy with heat and smog. The men are mostly
veterans of Iran’s 1980-88 war with Saddam’s Iraq, which was then
backed by Washington.
The imam begins: “Are you ready to put down your lives for the Islamic
Republic? The enemy is never far away.”
On a boulevard nearby, billboards pitch imported watches and perfume. A
few blocks away, a giant sign co-sponsored by the Tehran Municipal
Council – which selected Ahmadinejad as mayor in 2003 – shows a woman
cradling a baby in one arm and a gun in the another. “My children I
love,” the message says, “but I love martyrdom more.”
“The polarization in Iran is clear and probably will grow,” said
Shibley Telhami, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute who
follows Middle Eastern affairs. “This is the kind of environment that
can bring more tensions.”