An outsider, who watches the political events in Iran and hears about the tense confrontation between Ayatollah Ali Khameni and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, will find the events surprising and hard to understand. On May 30, the leader of the Revolutionary Guards, Ali Jafari, and their representative Ali Saeedi asked the government not to interfere in the next parliamentary elections. Ahmadinejad, once the apple in the eye of the conservatives, a man with a mission to restore the revolution's values, is now compared to former president Abul Hassan Bani Sadr and soon to be questioned by parliament. Bani Sadr, Iran's first president, got dismissed by parliament and fled to France in 1981, after struggling for many years with people close to Ayatollah Khomeini. Ahmadinejad was reputedly devoted to the Supreme Leader and other conservative figures. Nowadays he is called a supporter of Mujaheddin Khalgh, a militant group, in other words a ‘bad' movement. All these accusations started when he refused to dismiss his close friends and allies. At the top of the list was Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie, chief of staff, best friend and relative. Most of the president's loyal advisors and close aides have Ahmadinead's complete trust. They are now spied upon and accused of misleading the president. Some of them are war veterans. They lost an eye, a leg or have still shrapnel in their bodies. Nothing fazes them; they don't have anything to lose in a confrontation with the clergy, who is accusing them of using magic to bewitch the president. Some of them spent years in Sadam Hussein's prisons and have moving stories on how they were physically and mentally abused. All this is in stark contrast to the clerics. They don't have a track record of hard work or sacrifice for the nation. They enjoy comfortable and relaxing lives, provided by the Iranian citizens, who have to pay every year the Imam's Share (the share of Imam Mahdi), according to Shi'ite belief. Imam Mahdi's representatives collected money during his hidden era, supposed to be used for the Ayatollah's expenses, student tuition and so on. When Iranians want to make fun of a cleric they say: “He has never lifted up anything heavier than the water pot he uses to wash himself”. It is essential for most of these clerics to preserve the exclusive nature of their ‘club'. No matter who tries to undermine them and how, they fight and ruin that person, even if that person is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who saved them from the threat of the reformists in the 2009 presidential elections! It is a bit too early for them to confront Ahmadinejad directly, but it's unlikely that he can finish his term smoothly and without a heavy confrontation with radical religious leaders and their supporters. There are many veterans in Iran, even among the reformists, but what makes Ahmadinejad's clan different is the determination and commitment to their goal. When you talk to people close to President Ahmadnejad, they tell you quite clearly that they don't object to or disapprove of the reformists. Ahmadinejad and his circle have exposed the true face of the religious leadership. Many people believed the 2009 elections were rigged and the Revolutionary Guards were responsible for Ahmadinejad's false victory. Today the same people ask themselves why Revolutionary Guards leader Jafari wants the government to stay away from the next parliamentary elections! Do they not favour the president and his circle anymore, or were people mistaken to begin with when they thought that Khamenei supported the president? I remember the summer of 2009, when demonstrations in Tehran were brutally crushed. Everybody said that Ayatollah Khamenei's son Mojtaba was Ahmadinejad's best friend and ordered his forces to keep Ahmadinejad in power. Today everybody is realising that there is no connection between Mojtaba Khamenei and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Two years after the elections, people realised that Ahmadinejad was not involved when Ayatollah Khamenei's henchmen killed the protesters. It was clever of Ahmadinejad not to get involved – it revealed the system's true nature and showed who really held the power. Ayatollah Khamenei kept a low profile; as a result people knew little about him. Now he has been exposed and his reputation is ruined. Most of the hardliners and clerics are angry with Ahmadinejad, not because he does not seem to share their mad love for the Supreme Leader, but because they worry about their future. They fear that if Ahmadinejad stayed in power, their role and importance would weaken, or worse. The taboo has been broken, and people are yelling ‘down with Ayatollah Khamenei'. If he died, people would not want another totalitarian leader, particularly not as long as someone like Ahmadinejad was in power. All these accusations against Ahmadinejad and his circle are making the public laugh. The clerics are fighting for their own survival and not the country. They don't care about Khamenei or Ahmadinejad. More than anything else they want to hold on to their parliamentary seats, control of TV and media, their comfortable lives and incomes. They know that if they lose this battle, they will have to relinquish power and the magnificent opportunity given to them by Ayatollah Khomeini, who died exactly 22 years ago on June 3, 1989. For how much longer can the Shi'ite clerics keep his inheritance? Entekhabifard is an Iranian journalist, who regularly contributes to The Egyptian Gazette and its weekly edition, the Mail.
