Persian Politicking

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is not just a buffoonish figurehead, but part of a larger power struggle within Iran. We dismiss him at our peril.

For three decades, it has been evident that the Islamic Republic of Iran is, and will remain, a “problem” for U.S. policymakers. In the past, when the United States faced such geopolitical challenges, millions of dollars in grants and scholarships were made available for the scholarly study of every aspect of the challenging country or ideology; just consider the spread of institutes for Soviet studies in the 1960s and 1970s. Even then, strategic blunders were not always avoided.

But for reasons that are hard to fathom, in the case of Iran, the reverse has happened. Only after September 11 did top universities begin to launch or adequately support programs in Iranian studies, and even then it was invariably at the initiative of the Iranian-American community. The scarcity of seasoned Iran scholars has forced the U.S. government and the media to rely on either Iranian expatriates, each with a political ax to grind, or Western journalists who had become Iran “experts” by dint of the few days or weeks they spent in the country, invariably at the mercy of their government “handlers.” That is why a book like Kasra Naji’s Ahmadinejad: The Secret History of Iran’s Radical Leader is useful. His command of both “local” and “global” knowledge–necessary ingredients for adequate reporting from countries like Iran–and his mastery of the Persian language have made him a rightfully acclaimed journalist.

Ahmadinejad offers a brief history of the rise of the clerical regime through the prism of a political biography, following the Iranian president from his childhood in a poor and pious family to his stunning 2005 presidential election. His victory underscored the continued existence of a radical, intransigent faction within the regime, a faction that pines for a confrontation with the United States. But such a close study of the Islamic regime’s history also reveals a more moderate faction that has tried to find a peaceful solution to the nuclear impasse, as well as a seasoned, but now dormant democratic movement in the country. For all Ahmadinejad’s extremes, any U.S. policy that isolates and weakens the moderates and marginalizes the democratic movement–and talk or reality of war does both forcefully–is counterproductive for the United States and Israel and helpful to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The focus of Ahmadinejad is less the private life of the man, or the quirks of his character, than the political developments in Iran since the 1979 revolution. We learn much about Ahmadinejad’s political creed, but next to nothing about his private life (other than occasional snippets, such as his aides’ unchallenged claims that “he works 20 hours a day”). His relations with his wife, children, friends, and family remain terra incognito. Moreover, the book is weak on sources. To be fair, the scarcity of sources about a subject like Ahmadinejad partially arises from the realities of Iran–a despotic regime where documents are kept secret or used as a political weapon, and where talking to journalists can be dangerous. But when tackling thorny issues about Ahmadinejad’s past, this dearth of reliable sources becomes a serious problem.

Nevertheless, there is enough supportable evidence to develop a solid picture of Ahmadinejad’s political life. As Naji rightly argues, during the early years of Iran’s war with Iraq (1980-88) Ahmadinejad made “contacts with the early founders” of the Revolutionary Guards, links he kept up through his political rise. Naji shows that all of Ahmadinejad’s electoral victories–from his election as the mayor of Tehran to the presidency–were in no small measure the result of the support he received from these Guards. Likewise, he relied heavily on the Basij–the millions-strong gangs-cum-militias who control virtually every neighborhood and institution in Iran–to get votes and intimidate the opposition. The work of these two groups sometimes proved too effective: In one district, the number of votes cast for Ahmadinejad far exceeded the population of the district itself.

The two groups have, in turn, profited greatly from the Ahmadinejad presidency. His administration is filled with past members of the Guards. Moreover, during his three years in office, in spite of his constant railings against nepotism, theses commanders and the companies they established have garnered billions of dollars in no-bid contracts. “Every year up to 6 billion dollars worth of goods were imported illegally through the unofficial ports” controlled by the Revolutionary Guards, Naji writes. Ahmadinejad, like much of the nation, is aware of these ports but has done nothing about them.

Likewise, the Basij have been amply rewarded for their support. They were made an official part of the government bureaucracy, one of Ahmadinejad’s campaign promises, and their budget has increased 200 percent this year. In June 2008 alone, they received more than 3,000 no-bid government contracts. Their ability to use nearly free labor and their access to raw materials at “special” prices have made them, like the companies owned and operated by the Revolutionary Guards, the nemesis of the private sector. As Naji points out, a command state-dominated economy, in the style of the now defunct Soviet Union, is Ahmadinejad’s economic ideal, and in some ways becoming Iran’s reality.

Despite his ability to dole out political favors, Ahmadinejad faces many obstacles in bringing about his desired economic and political changes. In Iran today, power is at once diffused and centralized; the regime is not unlike a feudal monarchy, where different clerics or cliques have a fiefdom of their own, with Ayatollah Khamenei as the “monarch,” or leader, perched on top. Yet it is a an unstable hierarchy, with multiple poles of influence. No one is all-powerful, not even Khamenei; the presidency, in particular, has little formal power in the system.

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