Ultra conservative criticism of Ahmadinejad is growing and Khamenei’s fatwa looks desperate. Will regime in-fighting boil over?
Since the Iranian revolution of 1979, an ongoing and constant battle has been raging between different factions of Iran’s ruling elites over whose opinion should have more sway with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Between 2005 and the presidential elections of 2009, this battle was fought mainly between ultra conservatives (who supported President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) and reformists, ultra conservatives and moderate conservatives, and then again between ultra conservatives and reformists. Yet because the main issue revolves around the Supreme Leader himself, such debates have generally been held behind closed doors.
Not anymore.These days, the battle is being fought out in the open, but with a twist—the most visible opponents to the status quo are the ultra conservatives, who are now taking on Ahmadinejad.
‘In Iran, a new movement is appearing which wants to say that it’s more revolutionary than the Supreme Leader. This new movement wants to pit the supporters of Hezbollah (the original Hezbollah party, which is based in Iran and later had an offshoot in Lebanon) in the society against the Supreme Leader, and to make this movement problematic for him. This new movement doesn’t want to see the country in peace and tranquility. It even wants to vacate the surroundings of the Supreme Leader from others and only keep itself in his proximity. And when this happens, it will want to say that we are the only ones who stayed, therefore all authorities should be surrendered to me because I won 25 million votes.’
Who would make such radical remarks about the intentions of the president? It wasn’t the reformists Mehdi Karroubi or Mir-Hossein Mousavi. The comments were instead made on July 22 by Mehdi Mohammadi, the political editor of the ultra conservative Keyhan newspaper. Indeed, in the same speech, he went as far as to describe the movement behind Ahmadinejad as ‘the third pillar of sedition.’
What’s just as significant as what was said is the place where the remarks were made—in front of Ansar Hezbollah supporters, who are the backbone of the most conservative elements of the regime and staunch followers of the messianic Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi.
All this is a far cry from the loyal support offered by Keyhan during Ahmadinejad's first and second elections as president. Little more than a year ago, Ansar Hezbollah meetings were the place for Ahmadinejad's most ardent supporters and meetings were used to give warning over the ‘seditious’ intentions of the reformists who hoped to undermine the legitimacy of the regime.
It would have been unthinkable back then (and probably outright dangerous) for a person to stand up and criticize Ahmadinejad at these meetings and accuse him of seditious ideology. The fact that a hardliner can now do so without fear indicates how much has changed.
Photo Credit: Uniphoto Press
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Mickie Wupdajock
Regime change in Iran is a “dream” in some circles in the West. However, is the above what Iran or the West really want?
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been accused as being a lot of things by the West. In reality, he is nothing more than another moderate, reformist wannabe who wants to stamp his own personality on the presidency and wants to try to encourage social freedoms. When the hardliners and religious nuts began to see this, they turned on him. Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi is a very dangerous individual and so are militant groups like Hezbollah. If these got into power in Iran, all social changes maintained in Iran would be gone. Iran would be isolated by a government who wouldn’t out of religious duties sell oil to non-”Muslims”. “Islamic Voodooism” would prevail and ALL the things the West says Ahmadinejad is but isn’t would become a reality – only with Ahmadinejad not being the perpetrator. Ahmadinejad would be one more green movement opposition figure (joining former enemis Mousavi, Karroubi and Rafsanjani, just like Rafsanjani joined his former enemy Khatami).
Iran is not perfect as it is and needs a lot of democracy and needs more social freedoms. Khamenei may be corrupt, Ahmadinejad may be somewhat idealistic. BUT both are far preferable to an Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi-led kingdom in Iran.
Muhammad Talut
No need of those comments/rights that are only to create chaos and conflicts in human society. Reformations are OK but they never should cross the limit of decency and courtesy of Mankind. Iran is still a peaceful country and satisfied with its own systems. They are harming none. Why the westerns are so crazy to see the Iranians girls naked like they do to their own mothers and sisters?
Michael
And this has WHAT to do with the contents of the article?
Jonathan
I think the issue at hand is not whether or not Iranian systems are a bad thing, but rather that the people should be given more say in what they want in their political system.