Purging Iranian state institutions of opposition figures will only weaken Iran's new president, if not the entire country, writes Mustafa El-Labbad The Islamic Republic of Iran entered a new stage of its quarter of a century history when the extremist Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took over the reigns of the presidency 100 days ago. Since that time, Ahmadinejad's government has been the target of harsh attacks at home and abroad, of the like no other Iranian government has been subject to since the beginning of the era of the Islamic Revolution in 1979. Within these 100 days, Ahmadinejad has used the media to issue statements addressing everything from America to Israel and neighbouring states, and has gone as far as describing his political adversaries as morally corrupt. Ahmadinejad has turned around the process of re- integrating Iran into the international community that was begun by predecessors Rafsanjani and then Mohamed Khatami. Ahmadinejad's attempts to bring the Iranian Revolution back to its "pure roots" have consolidated the image of Iran internationally into his very personality, and have been accompanied by intense media and diplomatic attacks by the US over the Iranian nuclear issue and Washington's allegations that Iran has failed to comply with its international obligations. Until now, Ahmadinejad has not succeeded in gaining the approval of the Iranian parliament for his nominee to the post of minister of oil. Muhsin Salati was his third nominee in a row that parliament rejected, for the Iranian parliament reserves the constitutional right to grant confidence to nominees or not. The Ministry of Oil in Iran is not your average ministry; it is a "super ministry" because the country's primary export is oil, which, along with reserves of natural gas, does a lot to explain the proportion of Iran's international significance. Ahmadinejad presented three nominees for the post who -- like himself -- are historically affiliated to the revolutionary guard and who lack requisite professional and administrative knowledge. Parliament, which is dominated by conservatives like Ahmadinejad, therefore had no choice but to reject them. Refraining from renewing the tenure of the highly experienced former minister of oil Bijan Namdar Zankenah is perhaps understandable given rumours of bribery in the Ministry of Oil under his watch. Yet Ahmadinejad's failure to secure parliament's approval for any of his nominees calls for consideration of the speed with which the new president can "cleanse" the state apparatus of his prominent adversaries, and in particular Rafsanjani. International pressures on Iran require cognisance of international chain reactions as well as domestic and international acceptance of the president. Perhaps at this decisive moment more than at any other time in the past, Iran is in need of a pragmatic leadership, like that of Hashemi Rafsanjani, or a charismatic one, like that of Khatami. It is true that Rafsanjani and Khatami had their own flaws, criticised by Iranians before anyone else, but they remain a major emotive power that cannot be ignored or marginalised as the Ahmadinejad government is now doing. It is therefore not strange that recent weeks have seen ups and downs of a new kind between prominent political figures in Iran. Speech podiums have been transformed into launching pads for media missiles. This development stems from the state of political congestion choking Iran since the victory of Ahmadinejad. After the reformists lost their parliamentary majority last year, Khatami left the post of president, and other presidential candidates failed in the recent elections, Iranian legislative institutions fell into the grip of a conservative current. This current rapidly began to "cleanse" top posts in the state apparatuses of cadres not affiliated to it, in a practical application of the famous Iranian saying, "bake while the stove is lit". In this the extremist conservative current overstepped the customary law of rule in revolutionary Iran, most importantly that there should be representation of the various wings in state institutions and processes of decision-making. Political activity in Iran since Ahmadinejad has assumed government is no longer taking place among parties with a voice in the media, accustomed platforms, and a share in legislative institutions and state apparatuses. Rather, it is now taking place between a party that is strangling legislative institutions and the state apparatus on the one hand, and on the other, parties with various visions and orientations that have nothing left other than media platforms from which to record their objections to "politics" without being able to affect it. Ahmadinejad's victory and the political context it brought represents the apex of gains won by the conservative current to control the future of politics in Iran by endorsing state institutions and investing in the unlimited powers of "the guide" of the republic in order to meet this goal. Thus the losing candidate in the recent presidential elections, Hashemi Rafsanjani, waited for an opportunity to speak before a meeting of imams in Tehran to condemn the acts of "cleansing" the new government is undertaking against his supporters, removing them from their posts in the upper echelons of the Iranian state apparatus and administration. He stressed that these individuals had been raised in the shadow of the Islamic Revolution and that removing them served the "enemies of the state". Rafsanjani is not only a leader of a political current termed "the cadre of construction" but is essentially the father of Iranian technocrats, the architect of reconstruction following the war with Iraq and the godfather of Tehran's successful international deals. Rafsanjani, since the victory of the Iranian Revolution, has always been in the narrow circle of decision- making. Despite political upheaval and shifting orientations he has maintained his position in the game of "musical chairs. The objections Rafsanjani has made public in recent statements do not stem from bitterness over failing in the recent presidential elections, or the fraud that took place in them, but rather come in the context of attempts to erase him from the political equation in Iran. As for former president Khatami, he considers the extremists "supporters of Bin Laden who offer the best pretexts to the enemy," and does not conceal that what he means by "extremists" is the camp represented by the president of the Republic. Khatami, who had been known for avoiding public arguments, criticised Ahmadinejad two weeks ago for his statements on Israel, deeming them threatening to Iran's interests. In contrast to Rafsanjani, Khatami has no centre of power. A greater obstacle still has been the nature of his political agenda, which is based on the concepts of civil society and international law. Since his programme was not targeted towards certain segments of society and did not present a clear economic plan, his political influence ended when he left the post of president, even though he retained some emotive influence among Iranians who supported him before it became clear that his second presidential term was a failure. Perhaps the political thinking behind bringing Ahmadinejad to the post of president was to fortify the domestic front of conservatives in the context of pressures from abroad; pressures that have intensified over the Iranian nuclear issue that might yet be turned over to the Security Council. Yet Ahmadinejad's ideological outbursts and lack of political experience, as well as the kidnapping of "politics" by the conservative current, cannot have helped. It is true that Ahmadinejad's victory, despite fraud allegations from competing candidates, came through popular election. Yet the historical experience of the Iranian Revolution since the return of Imam Ayatollah Khomeini from exile in 1979 until the presidential victory of Ahmadinejad in 2005 shows that decision-making in Iran has always been distributed among the wings of the revolution. This historical experience also shows that political activity had been translated on the ground by the removal of certain wings from the circle of decision-making and the subsequent entrance of others. Example is provided by the political balance achieved post- revolution between the religious current led by Imam Ayatollah Khomeini and the liberal national current led by Mahdi Bazrkan. When the liberal current was removed, the religious current confronted Beni Sadr and the Mujahidi Khalq organisation. Then, with the victory of "the imam's line", the scene was transformed into a bipolar one within the religious current itself, between Muntadhiri on the one hand and Khamenei, Rafsanjani and Khomeini on the other. Following the death of Khomeini, this bipolarity became entrenched -- its two forces represented by Khamenei and Rafsanjani -- and absorbed all the political currents and divided the state. The appearance of Khatami and the reformist current in the second half of the 1990s led to a transformation of this bipolarity into a tripartite set-up. The guide of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, Ali Khamenei, has chosen to continue to back current President Ahmadinejad, urging all the parties attacking him to "realise the sensitivity of this stage". Following the failure of Khatami's agenda and his removal from positions of influence, the return of a bipolar division of power was perhaps a poor solution. And yet the unity of current Iranian politics runs counter to Iran's historical experience. Moreover, confronting external pressures requires fortifying the domestic front, securing representation for the widest possible range of actors in the process of forming policy. One hundred days have passed since Ahmadinejad was elected and its harvest in the international arena has not been in Iran's interest until now. Today, more so than at any other time in the past, Iran is in danger of being transformed, in the mind of the international community, and in the context of the international balance of power, from a fully sovereign state into one outside the law, upon which may descend economic sanctions, or worse. This has led, in a few short months, to the threat that 15 years of Iran's history, in which presidents Rafsanjani and Khatami attempted to open up to the world and improve Iran's image, will be thrown away. The removal of competing parties from the political game has weakened and fragmented the domestic front, incited the fury of the opposition, and brought the opposite results of those expected by the guide of the republic, Khamenei, when he backed Ahmadinejad as president.
