DUBAI - There are two men within Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's small circle in which he has total trust. They are his old friends Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie and Samareh Hashemi. They are the two closest allies of the Iranian President, who are as religious as he is and who share the same vision. Hashemi, who acts as the President's adviser, is not in the spotlight as much as Rahim Mashaie, his Chief of Staff. The appearance of a government official who isn't afraid to express himself so openly and munconditionally such as Rahim Mashaie is very new and unusual for many conservatives. In Iran, where most politicians pretend to believe in many things in order to gain or stay in power, there are not too many people like Mashaie, who is direct, gets straight to the point, and doesn't worry about offending Iran's clergy. Because of this, Mashaie has earned the wrath of most of the country's hard-line clerics. His critics range from members of the Iranian parliament with low religious ranking, such as Hojat Al-Islam Hamid Rassai, to those at the top of Iran's religious establishment, such as Ayatollah Mohamed Taghi Mesbah Yazdi and Ayatollah Ahmad Janati, who as head of the Guardian Council, confronted President Ahmadinejad and demanded the expulsion of his controversial Chief of Staff. In Iran, as in other dictatorships, the only person who must be adored and allowed to express himself regarding Iran's religious and national interests is the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Even the President is granted legitimacy only with the Supreme Leader's approval. Now there are rumblings of panic and doubt about Ahmadinejad's intentions towards Iran's system of clerical rule. Is it possible that someone like Ahmadinejad may ultimately be the one to bring an end to Iran's system of totalitarian dictatorship? And if this happens, what kind of government will replace it? “We must be alert,” said Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, widely viewed as Ahmadinejad's spiritual adviser, in recent remarks that surprised many in the Islamic Republic, especially reformists. “Certain people [within Ahmadinejad's government] who are shamelessly promoting the Iranian school in the place of the Islamic school, are outsiders, not insiders,” he said. More surprising were comments by General Hassan Firouz Abadi, the head of the Iranian army joint command, referring to remarks made by Mashaie as “deviant.” The President's Chief of Staff said that Firouz Abadi had invited “theoreticians of soft war and CIA spies into the country”. At a time when Iran is faced with a serious threat of confrontation with foreign powers over its nuclear programme, why are the country's conservatives bickering between one another? Iran's political reality is starting to come out from behind the curtain, and we should soon expect a new kind of relationship to develop between Ahmadinejad and the orthodox clergy within the Iranian system. We will soon probably see deep and open clashes between the Iranian President and clerics that will culminate in an ugly battle leading up to the next presidential election. What has alarmed Mesbah Yazdi, who famously advocates an extremely fundamentalist interpretation of Islam, are not just Mashaie's actions and rhetoric, but the possibility that clerical rule could come to an end in Iran. The country's clerics are worried about the future of Ayatollah Khamenei's post as Supreme Leader, and are alarmed about the future of supreme leadership in Iran if Ahmadinejad and his allies remain in power after Khamenei is gone. Ahmadinejad's frequent requests for a debate with US President Barack Obama, despite the Supreme Leader's open opposition to any direct USIran talks, has also made high ranking clerics very suspicious of the Iranian President's real goals. He has always openly showed his apathy towards gaining the approval or disapproval of Iran's Ayatollahs, and during his most recent visit to the holy city of Qom before Nourooz (Iranian New Year) in March, he didn't bother to visit any heavy weight Ayatollahs. When rumours circulated that Ahmadinejad had failed to meet some of the country's most famous clerics, the president's office merely issued a statement saying that the President had a very busy schedule and unfortunately didn't have enough time to visit the grand Ayatollahs. There is underlying fear within Iran's clerical establishment that Ahmadinejad plans for one of his trusted aides to become the country's next president. With the advent of a new era in Iran withoutAyatollah Khamenei, Ahmadinejad may send thecountry's current religious leaders back to the seminary in Qom, or ask unhappy clerics, such asHojatollah Hamid Rassai, to pack and leave forNajaf. While it is impossible to read Ahmadinejad'smind, it is becoming quite clear that during this post-election period he is striving to find an audience among Iran's disenfranchised youth,intellectuals and middle class. Last week, during a ceremony commemorating a national day forreporters, the President asked the judiciary to pardonany journalists charged with criticising thegovernment. The next day, Judiciary chief AyatollahSadegh Amoli Larijani called the President's request“unrealistic”. Whether Iranians are with Ahmadinejad oragainst him, there will undoubtedly be a great deal of general jubilation to see someone in Iran's leadership stand up to the ruling system. What Rahim Mashaie said during this year's Iranian scholars' conference in Tehran on August 8 wasexactly what much of the Iranian public believes. At the conference, Mashaie talked about the supremacyof an Iranian version of Islam. Orthodox clerics like Mesbah Yazi and others arepushing the President to expel Rahim Mashaie, but without even knowing it, they are indirectly increasing Mashaie's popularity and making him appear more interesting and different to the general public. Iranians who are tired of the role that clerics play in the country's government would welcome any kind of leadership that separates governance from the seminary. While this could be a very dangerous move if power falls into the hands of the Basij militia or the Revolutionary Guards, some sort of change must take place in order to exit the current deadlock, even if it means that circumstances will become even more difficult inside Iran. Is this what Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is counting on or thinking about?
Entekkhabifard is an Iranian journalist currently based in Dubai. She contributed this article to The Egyptian Gazette.
