Iran’s Hard Liners Are Making a Comeback

By Marc Campion and Arsalan Shahla

Last month, a strategist for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps proposed an alarming tactic to revive the ailing economy: Take an American hostage every week and ransom them back for $1 billion each.

“That’s the way to do it,” Hassan Abbasi told a public meeting in Nowshahr, a port city on the Caspian Sea.

Abbasi’s bombast, widely viewed on YouTube, has been disowned by the IRGC’s leadership and isn’t policy. Yet it raises a vital question: What would hard liners do differently if they secured control over all branches of power in Iran? That’s important because it’s probably about to happen for the first time since 2013, when President Hassan Rouhani swept to office promising an end to Iran’s long-running nuclear standoff with the West and a new era of economic prosperity.

So-called “principlists”—conservatives wedded to the theocratic ideals of Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution and often connected to the IRGC—are set to win elections to Iran’s parliament on Friday. And although the legislature has only limited powers, the vote will set the foundations for presidential elections due next year and the eight-year political cycle to follow.

The return of conservative control to all branches of government for the first time since the end of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s presidency in mid-2013 has significant potential consequences for the Iranian economy and the wider Middle East – including any hopes Iran will renegotiate its landmark nuclear settlement with the U.S.

About 90 current MPs have been barred from running again, tipping the field heavily in favor of principlists who have argued that Iran should not yield to the economic privations imposed by tightening U.S. sanctions.

That piles additional pressure on Rouhani and his less ideologically-driven government, which has already lost much credibility in the eyes of voters since the U.S. unilaterally withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal he championed.

Rouhani signed that agreement expecting the accompanying sanctions relief to trigger foreign investment and plug the nation of 84 million into the global economy after decades of isolation. Never fully realized, those hopes disappeared after the U.S. reimposed sanctions in 2018.

“What is especially important for people is to see this severe pressure lifted from their lives in line with the values of the Islamic revolution,” Alaeddin Boroujerdi, prominent conservative legislator and former head of parliament’s committee on foreign policy and national security, said in a phone interview on Monday. “As the Supreme Leader has said, we are in an imposed economic war.”

Officials from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei down are urging a shift to “economic resistance” -- an idea floated in the midst of nuclear negotiations as a fall back option should the West abrogate its commitments. That would see Iran abandon Rouhani’s push to open up toWestern investment and trade, and focus, instead, on boosting self-reliance. It calls for looser fiscal policies to support the poor, less dependence on oil exports, and more investment in domestic industries.

Conservatives say Iran should turn instead to China, already the nation’s biggest trade partner, though that’s probably not enough to ensure growth. Chinese energy technologies have disappointed Iranian partners in the past and, already embroiled in a trade war with the U.S., China has proved reluctant to invite American penalties by buying much more Iranian oil.

The re-imposition of sanctions has hammered the economy – the International Monetary Fund estimates it shrank by 9.5% last year – but Iran’s growth, inflation and, to an extent, its currency have begun to stabilize, even if recovery remains elusive. Oil exports, down 80%, show no sign of recovering. Yet the construction sector is doing well, as are steel production and exports for cash to Iran’s immediate neighbors – a trade more difficult for the U.S. to interdict than oil.

A crisis budget issued in December gives an idea of the emerging approach. Unusually, it received approval from the National Economic Security Council before presentation to parliament, signalling cross-system support. It boosts handouts for the poor as well as defense spending, though in both cases by less than inflation and relying on some heroic growth and oil export assumptions to make the sums add up.

Iran appears confident it has sufficient reserves to plug those fiscal holes, at least for a year or so. Critically, that would take the country beyond November elections in the U.S., which might bring a change of attitude in Washington – even if President Donald Trump secures a second term.

“The Trump administration has framed its policy as giving Iran a choice: Capitulate to U.S. demands, or see the economy collapse,” said Henry Rome, an Iran specialist at Eurasia Group, a New York-based risk consultancy. “But the Iranians have made it clear they are forging their own third option – to muddle through until circumstances shift in their favor.”

IRGC to Power?

In a recent research note to clients, Tehran business consultancy Ara Enterprise predicted a landslide conservative victory in parliamentary polls, leading to deeper political and economic isolation. Yet they could also surprise.

“Many believe that the IRGC in power is not such a bad scenario, as no one could sabotage their mandate,” the note said, whereas reformist President Mohammad Khatami (1997-2005), like Rouhani, faced a conservative assault. IRGC control, it added, could even lead to a Nixon-to-China-style settlement with the U.S., something conservatives would never allow with Rouhani as president.

The IRGC, the only national military force listed by the U.S. as a terrorist organization, has become richer and more powerful than it was even under Ahmadinejad. Across sectors, it has taken contracts that either belonged to or were intended for foreign investors driven away by sanctions. That process is likely to continue.

The risk for conservatives is that some voters will stay home, reducing turnout and, potentially legitimacy. One poll taken after fuel-price protests in November found only 21% of respondents in Tehran planned to vote, though confrontation with the U.S. has energized Khamenei’s conservative base.

“It’s not a matter of reformists versus conservatives anymore,” said Mohsen, a 33-year-old who attended last week’s celebration of the revolution. “It’s about revolutionaries against non-revolutionaries, supporters of the Islamic revolution against infiltrators and deviants.”

Photo: IRNA

Trump Offensive Leaves Iran’s Hardliners Ascendant as Poll Nears

By Golnar Motevalli and Arsalan Shahla

After a dozen years as speaker of Iran’s parliament, half of them allied with President Hassan Rouhani as he reached out to the West, Ali Larijani is bowing out.

It’s been a tumultuous reign, book-ended by devastating U.S. sanction regimes. But his decision not to contest February 21 national assembly elections is more than a hard-earned career change. Those who backed Rouhani when Iran negotiated the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, including the influential 62-year-old Larijani, stand fatally weakened as the accord crumbles under President Donald Trump’s economic offensive and Tehran’s tit-for-tat reprisals.

The U.S. “maximum pressure” campaign weakened the position of Iran’s reformists, according to one of their number, Jalal Mirzaei.

“Things were going well,” Mirzaei said in Vienna this month as he attended an OPEC meeting. Then “Mr. Trump became president.”

As a result, more than six years after Iranians opted for change under Rouhani, arch-conservatives are ascendant, dominating the field of favored ballot candidates. The consequences for Iran and regional security are substantial.

On the Backfoot

“We’re in a situation where the more reasonable voices calling for a much more open Iran which was pro-diplomacy are fast losing ground to hardliners,” said Ellie Geranmayeh, deputy head of the Middle East and North Africa program at the European Council of Foreign Relations.

The Trump administration sought to weaken Iran, which he blamed for stirring regional strife and exporting extremism, in part by alienating Iranians from their leaders. His administration pointed to last month’s protests and a deadly security crackdown as evidence the sanctions strategy is working.

To further its aims, the U.S. might welcome power consolidated in the hands of ultra-conservatives, said Geranmayeh, if that undermines European resolve to maintain ties with Iran.

But for many observers, the electoral realignment’s more likely to extend the standoff. After all, encouraging Iran to accept greater curbs on its nuclear and missile programs for sanctions to be lifted becomes harder if the result is to sideline the people who might be willing to make the case for concessions.

While Iranian leaders have mostly remained united in opposing negotiations with the U.S. until it removes sanctions, two attempts by French President Emmanuel Macron to kickstart talks showed promise. The second foundered after a September attack on Saudi Arabian oil facilities, which Washington blamed on Iran, hardened positions.

‘Gravely Damaged’

“By undermining Rouhani’s most important achievement, Trump gravely damaged his presidency and popularity,” said Ali Vaez, senior analyst at the International Crisis Group. “What has been fatally damaged in the process is not just pro-engagement Iranian politicians, but the whole concept of engagement with the West.”

The 16,145 people registered to contest 290 seats in parliament represent the narrow spectrum of Iranian politics. But the most well-known number among Rouhani’s fiercest critics, supporters of an unflinching interpretation of Iran’s Islamic laws with careers defined by distrust of the U.S. and the wider West.

They include ex-mayor of Tehran and former military officer Mohammad-Bagher Qalibaf; Vahid Yaminpour, a TV personality; and legal scholar and cleric Hamid Rasaei.

The most notable reformists standing are Rouhani’s former top legal adviser Shahindokht Molaverdi, and the president’s son-in-law. The current record number of 14 women lawmakers is likely to drop.

Secretary of State Michael Pompeo on December 2 said the Trump administration’s reliance on sanctions to achieve goals in places like Iran and Venezuela had been “incredibly effective.” Tehran has fewer resources to conduct a regional “terror campaign,” he said.

Collision Course

Yet a lurch to the right in Iran risks emboldening the security services and their proxy forces in war zones such as Yemen and Syria, raising the chances of a confrontation, orchestrated or unplanned, with the U.S. just as its Gulf partners want to deescalate tensions.

And it could overwhelm the government with “monthly and even weekly interrogations of ministers and impeachment efforts,” said Geranmayeh. Targets will include Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh, one of Rouhani’s most effective technocrats who has longstanding links to reformers, and whom hardliners in parliament are currently trying to impeach.

The government had lost support before Trump exited the nuclear deal last year, for failing to deliver the jobs and better pay the accord promised. Other Iranians, dismayed over no progress in delivering greater social freedoms, lost patience.

As a U.S. ban on critical oil exports tipped the economy into recession, the government’s popularity dived.

Low Turnout

The slump is expected to reduce turnout in February, boosting hardliners whose supporters traditionally vote under instruction from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Mohammadali Abtahi, a reformist cleric jailed during unrest that followed 2009’s disputed presidential election, told Shargh newspaper that “unpopular” conservatives would “emerge as victorious only if turnout is low.”

He’s not the only moderate to speak out. In a statement read by supporters, former President Mohammad Khatami, whose words can’t be reported in Iran due to a ban, told a December 12 Tehran rally that the only alternative to an Islamic Republic that honored its original founding principles was a dictatorship.

Others present called on Khamenei to overhaul an opaque council able to disqualify election candidates with little accountability, as well as to avoid using decrees—such as the one that triggered November’s violence—to bypass parliamentary oversight.

As for Larijani, Iran’s former top nuclear negotiator may be taking a step back to consider a bid for the presidency. But much of that would depend on the fate of the nuclear deal and whether Trump himself wins another term next year.

Seething Unrest

For now, as he nears the end of his tenure, Larijani still has the task of refereeing a majority-moderate parliament that’s using whatever time it has left to amend the gasoline policy.

In Tehran, where an acrid smog hung over commuters, first-time voter Amirali, 20, dismissed the system as corrupt.

“Somebody comes along with the promise of a better future and people fall for their words,” he said, asking not to be identified due to the sensitivity of speaking to foreign media.

The spark for the protests was a surprise decision to hike gasoline prices and introduce rationing. Demonstrations swept through the cities of Tabriz, Isfahan and Mashhad, and then spread to Tehran as the city was cloaked by a sudden snowfall.

Unverified mobile-phone footage showed clashes between protesters and security forces. Authorities imposed an unprecedented internet blackout and it’s still not clear how many people were killed: death tolls range from an initial 12 reported by officials—a number that hasn’t been updated—to an estimate of more than 200 by Amnesty International.

The violence underscored moderates’ perilous position with less than two years left of Rouhani’s second and last term.

“The most important thing that brings people out to vote is hope,” said Zanganeh, in what could turn out to be a grim prophesy. “And the thing that drives them away is hopelessness.”

Photo: IRNA

Tough Times for Iran's Political Parties as Revolution Turns 40

Iran's main political parties are on rocky ground as the Islamic Republic marks its 40th birthday, with reformists in disarray and conservatives seeking a new identity.

Even though key reformist leaders have been forcibly sidelined, Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a former reformist vice-president in the 1990s, still believes gradual change is the only option for his country.

Since mass protests against alleged election-rigging in 2009, his former boss, ex-president Mohammad Khatami, is barred from appearing in the media, and presidential candidates Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi have been under house arrest for the last eight years.

There are also few signs of a new generation emerging to succeed them, not least because Iran's influential Guardian Council has the power to reject any election candidates it deems unqualified, Abtahi told AFP.

"The candidates that can pass the Guardian Council's vetting are low-level," he said. "You can't expect much from them."

The reformists instead pinned their hopes on President Hassan Rouhani, a political moderate who sought conciliation with the West through a landmark nuclear deal in 2015.

Yet their hopes have proven ill-founded. Since the United States unilaterally withdrew from that deal last year, Iran's economy has been in tailspin, adding to popular anger that burst onto the streets in violent protests across dozens of towns and cities a year ago.

’Game has changed'

"When the demonstrators shouted 'Reformists, conservatives: the game is over', they were not wrong," said conservative analyst and politician Amir Mohebbian. "The fact is the (political) game has changed."

"Until now, voters would go for the candidate they thought would do the least harm ... but now they have taken as much as they can stand. Now the people want someone who can actually solve their problems."

Mohebbian did not elaborate on potential candidates as jockeying for the next presidential elections, due to take place in 2021, has not yet started. 

But the decision to back Rouhani has "bankrupted" the reformists, he claimed.

Journalist and activist Ahmad Zeidabadi, who has been arrested several times, goes further, saying the reformists' plans to try to change the very nature of the state "reached a dead end" some time ago because of the system's lack of "flexibility.”

The disarray among the reformist camp however does not mean the conservatives will benefit, said Mohebbian, who believes they first need to "redefine their relationship with the establishment."

For decades, the conservatives have been closely associated with the establishment, many of them holding key unelected positions.

But for them to survive the changing political environment, they "must move closer to the people" since the people "don't trust" them now, Mohebbian said.

And it is not just mainstream political factions who are demanding change. Ardent supporters of the revolution believe its original values—such as policies in favor of the poor—have been largely forgotten, pointing to widespread allegations of corruption to back their claims.

'Paradigm shift?'

Concern over corruption by successive governments has become a "powderkeg," believes Nader Talebzadeh, a film-maker who advised Ebrahim Raisi, the preferred candidate of ultraconservatives in the 2017 presidential election.

The whole issue of corruption "makes the Iranian people very angry," he added.

But for all the popular disillusionment, former vice-president Abtahi said Iranians are still "wise enough to know that regime change will destroy their future"—especially if it is coordinated by the United States.

"Maybe if the US had turned Iraq and Afghanistan into an economic heaven, a heaven of social freedoms... maybe things would be very different," he said with a wry smile.

The authorities have always boasted of high election turnouts as evidence of their legitimacy. In 2017, more than 73 percent of eligible voters took part in the presidential election. 

Looking ahead, Mohebbian believes "the next five years or so are going to be important," pointing to the fact that Iran will need at some point to choose a successor to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who turns 80 this year.

"This is the general period in which there could be changes in the country's leadership," Mohebbian said.

"The important issue is whether a shift at the top of the state will lead to a paradigm shift or not," he added. 

“Will it lead to a change of things that we currently consider sacrosanct? Or will these elements be kept but the direction change, leaving only a shell of what was?"

Photo Credit: IRNA

Iran Backlash After Top Cleric Meets Reformists

A hardline member of Iran's powerful Guardian Council was facing a backlash on Sunday after criticizing one of the country's top religious figures for meeting with reformist politicians.

The dispute reflects the diversity of views within Iran's religious elite and the fact that, well after the 1979 Islamic revolution, some senior Shiite clerics fiercely defend their independence.

The controversy started a fortnight ago when 90-year-old Grand Ayatollah Musa Shobairi Zanjani—considered one of the highest religious authorities and a "marja" (or "source of emulation") for huge numbers of Shiite Muslims—met with ex-president Mohammad Khatami and other members of the reformist camp.

Khatami was president from 1997 to 2005 but has since fallen foul of the system, especially after supporting mass protests in 2009, and is banned from leaving the country or appearing in official media.

That meeting drew a shocked response from another leading ayatollah, Mohammad Yazdi, who leads an influential conservative clerical association in Qom, regarded as Iran's religious capital.

Yazdi is one of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's appointees to the Guardian Council, a supervisory body that has a veto over all parliamentary laws.

"Following the publication of pictures on social media of you alongside some problematic individuals who have no respect for the system of the Islamic republic and the supreme leader, I hereby state that this issue has caused concern and upset among followers and in the seminaries," Yazdi wrote in an open letter published by the Jamaran news site.

"I would like to remind you that your status and respect are tied to your respect for the ruling Islamic system, the leadership and the status of marjas... and take steps to ensure such matters are not repeated again," he added.

To criticise a grand ayatollah in this way was considered beyond the pale for many observers.

Abbas Salehi, minister of Islamic culture and guidance, tweeted late Saturday: "We must be careful not to weaken the pure marjas under the banner of preserving the system, and not spoil Shiite historical heritage."

At least one ayatollah resigned from Yazdi's religious association in protest, while another, Ayatollah Hadavi Tehrani, said the "impolite" letter to Zanjani had caused "sadness and sorrow".

Responses continued to come from many senior officials and commentators on Sunday.

"We Shiites are proud that our noble marjas have never gotten permission from any power but glorious God and have not been bound by the constraints of any political and economic bodies," tweeted Elisa Hazrati, a member of parliament and managing director of the reformist Etemad newspaper.

Photo Credit: IRNA

Iran Approves Release of Protest Leaders Mousavi, Karroubi: Family

Iran's top security body has approved the release of opposition figures Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, under house arrest for seven years for leading mass protests in 2009, a family member told local media.

"I have heard that the decision to lift the house arrest was approved by the Supreme National Security Council," said Hossein Karroubi, son of the jailed reformist, according to the Kalameh news website which is close to the family. 

"This decision will be presented to the (supreme) leader so that this case can be concluded," he said, adding that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would have 10 days to veto the decision. 

There was no official confirmation of the decision, but the reports come at a time when Iran's leaders are keen to unite conservative and reformist factions to face down increasing pressure from the United States and a worsening economic crisis.

Mousavi, 76, and Karroubi, 80, were reformist candidates in the controversial election of 2009, which was won by hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. 

They claimed the vote was rigged, triggering months of mass protests, particularly in Tehran. Hundreds of thousands took to the streets in the biggest challenge to the system since the Islamic revolution of 1979.  

The pair were placed under house arrest without trial in February 2011, along with Mousavi's high-profile wife, 66-year-old Zahra Rahnavard. 

Hossein Karroubi said the security council had also agreed to lift restrictions on reformist figurehead Mohammad Khatami, who was Iran's president from 1997 to 2005. 

The media had been banned from showing Khatami's face and strict limits were placed on his movements.

President Hassan Rouhani repeatedly vowed to seek the release of Mousavi and Karroubi—a major plank of his election in 2013 and re-election last year, with their names frequently chanted at his rallies. 

But despite Rouhani chairing the Supreme National Security Council, which is made up of government and military figures appointed by the president and supreme leader, there had been no sign of progress on their release. 

Photo Credit: AFP