Hassan Rouhani’s decisive victory in the Iranian presidential elections held last week reveals that after 38 years, Iranians are still struggling to resolve the conflicts and contradictions unleashed by the original Islamic Revolution of 1979. That movement, which united millions under the banner of making Iranians, at long last, masters in their own house, has yet to answer a basic question: Which Iranians will be masters and in what kind of house?
Within a few years of the Shah-led monarchy’s collapse in February 1979, the religious radicals who shared Islamic Revolution leader Ayatolah Ruhollah Khomeni’s idiosyncratic and authoritarian vision of an Islamic state had driven their Marxist, nationalist, and traditionalist coalition partners to prison, exile, or irrelevance. As part of that victory, an elite of 20-30 religious leaders, joined by ties of family, business, and shared ideology, took power in 1979, and despite losses to age and assassinations, has tenaciously maintained its grip on key posts both inside and outside the formal “republican” structures. The names are familiar: Khamene’i, Jannati, Hashemi-Rafsanjani, Mahdavi-Kani, Va’ez-e-Tabasi, Dastgheib, Emami-Kashani, Shahroudi, Mohammad-Yazdi, and others.
Those who ruled the Islamic Republic for so long have rarely sought their citizens’ opinions on anything. Even the mass marches and rallies of the early days have vanished. Presidential elections, despite the practice of extreme vetting by a conservative Guardian Council, remain a rare and valued opportunity for Iranians to express views that, at other times, could bring them into conflict with authority.
In this case, Iranians gave a clear message in re-electing Rouhani. They rejected the old ways, the old rhetoric, the old people, and the old system. Rouhani’s rival, Ebrahim Raisi, despite his populist rhetoric, was obviously part of the old elite. He is a former judge on the panel that condemned thousands of political prisoners in 1988; the guardian of the wealthy shrine of Imam Reza at Mashhad; the virtual lord of the vast province of Khorasan; and the son-in-law of Ahmad Alamolhoda, the extremist Friday prayer leader of Mashhad. Most importantly, when citizens believed he was the preferred choice of their Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a large majority rejected him and what he represented.
Iran’s political landscape continues to shift. The election results evidenced the growing divisions between state and society. On one side there is a society – including many well-educated women – that is creative, tech-savvy, aware of the world, and highly literate. On the other is a state – particularly the unaccountable “deep state” of the justice and security apparatus – that is increasingly ossified, isolated, clueless, and intolerant of questions and criticism.
As the former – Iran’s dynamic and creative society – gathers strength and finds more channels for expression, the latter – the besieged state – will sometimes lash out brutally or will sometimes make the accommodations it believes necessary to ensure its own survival. Its members know one basic fact: no one in Iran’s ruling elite ever gives up power willingly. One either dies of old age, is assassinated, or is removed by political enemies. No one retires voluntarily to work at private business, a think-tank, or a university.
This election mattered. It mattered to at least the 70 percent or more of Iranian eligible voters who cast ballots. It mattered to those who saw a clear choice between four more years of empty slogans and serious people dealing with serious problems. It mattered to those concerned with Iran’s place is the world. Simply put, would Iran have a president to whom other world leaders would listen or would it have a president whose positions and statements would make him, and by extension the entire country, an international pariah and an embarrassment shunned by all but North Korea and the Ba’athis of Syria?
The Nobel-prize winning Iranian lawyer and human rights defender, Shirin Ebadi, has noted her compatriots’ search for heroes who will rescue them from oppression, poverty, and humiliation. She noted how former Iranian President Mohammad Khatemi (1997-2005) came into office on such expectations, and how, when unable to fulfil such unrealistic hopes, his support turned into disillusionment.
As the bifurcated Iranian political system currently operates, no president is going to solve Iran’s domestic and foreign problems. The “republican” part of the Islamic Republic has little say in larger issues of national security, foreign policy, and justice, where the unelected and shadowy “revolutionary” organs, answerable to the Supreme Leader, hold sway.
The president’s power is limited. Looking at the Iranian political system and its recent history, it is hard to understand why anyone would even want the job. The salary isn’t much, and the precedents are terrible. The Islamic Republic’s first president spent his afternoons as editor-in-chief of an opposition newspaper and later had to flee for his life disguised as a woman; the second was assassinated after a few weeks in office; the third had his arm blown off, and while in office, complained that he was overshadowed by the Supreme Leader and the prime minister; and another has become a non-person, forbidden from speaking or traveling abroad.
President Rouhani likes to speak of “win-win” outcomes. Too often, however, for Iranians the expression has meant, “I win twice and you lose twice.” Can he change that meaning into one where all parties benefit from his policies? Within the inherent limitations of his office and remembering his predecessors’ difficulties, he will need to address his supporters’ expectations. Doing so will mean: bringing Iran out of its international isolation (including a serious effort to improve relations with Arab neighbors); improving a limping economy; and, most important, creating a system that treats Iran’s citizens – particularly its women, its intelligentsia, and its ethnic and religious minorities – with the dignity and respect that a cultured and creative people deserve.
