Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
New York Times
April 4, 2007
Pg. 5
By Michael Slackman
CAIRO, April 3 — Behind the seesaw crisis of Iran’s detention of 15 British sailors and marines lies an internal Iranian struggle pitting radicals, aligned with the president, against more pragmatic officials concerned about the country’s growing isolation.
The capture of the Britons initially showed the rising dominance of the president and his allies, specifically the Revolutionary Guards, whereas a move toward finding a diplomatic solution is a sign that the pragmatists are pushing back.
Ali Larijani, the head of the Supreme National Security Council, is a leading pragmatist. On Tuesday, he spoke on state television and suggested that an end to the crisis could be in sight: “The British government has begun its diplomatic negotiations with Iran’s Foreign Ministry in a bid to resolve the issue of British sailors and marines. If these talks go ahead on a logical path, they can change the ongoing conditions and put an end to the dispute.”
Conservative students from Imam Sadiq University, owned by the Revolutionary Guards, have condemned Mr. Larijani for saying there was no need to put the British sailors, who were seized March 23, on trial. “Releasing the British military personnel without a trial is doubtlessly a big error which the Iranian nation would never pardon,” they wrote in a statement carried by the ISNA news agency.
“You must know that the Iranian nation hates the British government due to the history of the Old Fox’s anti-Iranian conspiracies,” the students wrote, using a nickname for Britain. “You should not back down in the face of the historical enemy of Iran.”
The difference between the sides may be a matter more of style than substance, since both support Iran’s drive for nuclear technology and harbor deep distrust of Britain. The seesaw generally tips toward the side bringing the system its greatest benefits.
When an attempt to build confidence in its nuclear program failed to win concessions from Europe, Iran grew confrontational and started its nuclear fuel enrichment program. When direct challenges to the West did not produce retaliation, support for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was high. And when constant caustic remarks by Mr. Ahmadinejad appeared to be undermining support for Iran’s nuclear program, the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, pushed the president away from the nuclear issue.
That emphasis on results may well explain the lowering of voices coming from Tehran. “Confronting an aggressor is of course a necessity and national glory,” wrote Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a former vice president, in his blog, Webneveshteha.com.
Mr. Abtahi, who served under Muhammad Khatami, a reform-minded president, wrote, “But it will be more in Iran’s interest than Britain’s if this crisis is over by diplomatic means as soon as possible.”
It is only in the past few days that critics of the president have felt confident enough to speak out, no matter how tempered the criticism.
“What they are doing with the sailors will not benefit Iran and it will even worsen the international conditions for the Islamic Republic,” said Mohammad-Reza Jalaipour, a sociologist and former government official, in a telephone interview.
The divide over the current crisis with Britain also seems to expose divisions within each political approach. President Ahmadinejad has not had the support of so-called hard-liners in Parliament since shortly after his election in 2005. Parliament initially challenged the president on his selection of ministers, and has often criticized his budget.
It appears to be more a conflict driven by so-called hard-liners within the Revolutionary Guards, who are aligned with the president and who have seen their political and economic influence grow since his election. When he took office, Mr. Ahmadinejad moved to create a new political class, relying mostly on former members of the Revolutionary Guards, analysts in Iran said.
He turned to men whose views were shaped during their service in the Guards in the eight-year Iran-Iraq war, men who hewed very closely to the ideological ideas of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and were determined to roll back the modest social and political reforms of President Khatami, which they saw as a dilution of the revolution.
“They have a political and security role, huge financial resources and assets that are not listed in the country’s budget, and manage the country’s nuclear program,” said Mehdi Chehade, a professor of political science at the Lebanese University in Beirut, who often writes on Iran. “These elements combined helped these ultra-conservatives emerge as today’s main power in Iran.”
The president has traveled around the country ordering up local construction jobs, then giving the work to the engineering branch of the Guards. Experts in Iran said the Guards could not handle all the work and would then subcontract the projects out, taking a percentage for simply passing the job off.
Shortly after the eight British sailors and seven marines were seized in what Iran says were its territorial waters, and what Britain says were Iraqi waters, it quickly became clear that the Guards were in command. Foreign Ministry officials said privately in Tehran that they were not consulted and at one point had no idea even where the sailors and marines were being detained.
The Guards, unlike the army, have a primarily ideological mandate as the guardian of the revolution. They were created by Ayatollah Khomeini shortly after the revolution in 1979 to serve as the ideological muscle behind a system looking to secure itself while unsure of the loyalty of the police and the military.
That initial mandate has for decades allowed the Guards to operate free from most political oversight and to evolve as one of the most independent centers of power, loyal only to the supreme leader.
The Guards established their own weapons procurement system and their own army, air force and navy. In 2000 they was estimated to have a force of about 120,000 divided into about 15 divisions, working in 11 regions around the country. They also see their mandate as including the export of revolutionary ideas, and helped to build Hezbollah, the Shiite militia in southern Lebanon.
When Mr. Ahmadinejad was first elected nearly two years ago, Iranian political analysts said his victory did not represent the rise of hard-liners as much as it did the militarization of the system of governance. It is unclear if the president or the supreme leader knew about the seizure of the Britons in advance.
But since it occurred, it has been used to rally Mr. Ahmadinejad’s base at a time when his support seemed to be fraying. The president, elected on a platform of economic populism, promising a redistribution of the state’s vast oil wealth, has been sharply criticized for failing to deliver on his economic promises.
April 4, 2007
Pg. 5
By Michael Slackman
CAIRO, April 3 — Behind the seesaw crisis of Iran’s detention of 15 British sailors and marines lies an internal Iranian struggle pitting radicals, aligned with the president, against more pragmatic officials concerned about the country’s growing isolation.
The capture of the Britons initially showed the rising dominance of the president and his allies, specifically the Revolutionary Guards, whereas a move toward finding a diplomatic solution is a sign that the pragmatists are pushing back.
Ali Larijani, the head of the Supreme National Security Council, is a leading pragmatist. On Tuesday, he spoke on state television and suggested that an end to the crisis could be in sight: “The British government has begun its diplomatic negotiations with Iran’s Foreign Ministry in a bid to resolve the issue of British sailors and marines. If these talks go ahead on a logical path, they can change the ongoing conditions and put an end to the dispute.”
Conservative students from Imam Sadiq University, owned by the Revolutionary Guards, have condemned Mr. Larijani for saying there was no need to put the British sailors, who were seized March 23, on trial. “Releasing the British military personnel without a trial is doubtlessly a big error which the Iranian nation would never pardon,” they wrote in a statement carried by the ISNA news agency.
“You must know that the Iranian nation hates the British government due to the history of the Old Fox’s anti-Iranian conspiracies,” the students wrote, using a nickname for Britain. “You should not back down in the face of the historical enemy of Iran.”
The difference between the sides may be a matter more of style than substance, since both support Iran’s drive for nuclear technology and harbor deep distrust of Britain. The seesaw generally tips toward the side bringing the system its greatest benefits.
When an attempt to build confidence in its nuclear program failed to win concessions from Europe, Iran grew confrontational and started its nuclear fuel enrichment program. When direct challenges to the West did not produce retaliation, support for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was high. And when constant caustic remarks by Mr. Ahmadinejad appeared to be undermining support for Iran’s nuclear program, the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, pushed the president away from the nuclear issue.
That emphasis on results may well explain the lowering of voices coming from Tehran. “Confronting an aggressor is of course a necessity and national glory,” wrote Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a former vice president, in his blog, Webneveshteha.com.
Mr. Abtahi, who served under Muhammad Khatami, a reform-minded president, wrote, “But it will be more in Iran’s interest than Britain’s if this crisis is over by diplomatic means as soon as possible.”
It is only in the past few days that critics of the president have felt confident enough to speak out, no matter how tempered the criticism.
“What they are doing with the sailors will not benefit Iran and it will even worsen the international conditions for the Islamic Republic,” said Mohammad-Reza Jalaipour, a sociologist and former government official, in a telephone interview.
The divide over the current crisis with Britain also seems to expose divisions within each political approach. President Ahmadinejad has not had the support of so-called hard-liners in Parliament since shortly after his election in 2005. Parliament initially challenged the president on his selection of ministers, and has often criticized his budget.
It appears to be more a conflict driven by so-called hard-liners within the Revolutionary Guards, who are aligned with the president and who have seen their political and economic influence grow since his election. When he took office, Mr. Ahmadinejad moved to create a new political class, relying mostly on former members of the Revolutionary Guards, analysts in Iran said.
He turned to men whose views were shaped during their service in the Guards in the eight-year Iran-Iraq war, men who hewed very closely to the ideological ideas of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and were determined to roll back the modest social and political reforms of President Khatami, which they saw as a dilution of the revolution.
“They have a political and security role, huge financial resources and assets that are not listed in the country’s budget, and manage the country’s nuclear program,” said Mehdi Chehade, a professor of political science at the Lebanese University in Beirut, who often writes on Iran. “These elements combined helped these ultra-conservatives emerge as today’s main power in Iran.”
The president has traveled around the country ordering up local construction jobs, then giving the work to the engineering branch of the Guards. Experts in Iran said the Guards could not handle all the work and would then subcontract the projects out, taking a percentage for simply passing the job off.
Shortly after the eight British sailors and seven marines were seized in what Iran says were its territorial waters, and what Britain says were Iraqi waters, it quickly became clear that the Guards were in command. Foreign Ministry officials said privately in Tehran that they were not consulted and at one point had no idea even where the sailors and marines were being detained.
The Guards, unlike the army, have a primarily ideological mandate as the guardian of the revolution. They were created by Ayatollah Khomeini shortly after the revolution in 1979 to serve as the ideological muscle behind a system looking to secure itself while unsure of the loyalty of the police and the military.
That initial mandate has for decades allowed the Guards to operate free from most political oversight and to evolve as one of the most independent centers of power, loyal only to the supreme leader.
The Guards established their own weapons procurement system and their own army, air force and navy. In 2000 they was estimated to have a force of about 120,000 divided into about 15 divisions, working in 11 regions around the country. They also see their mandate as including the export of revolutionary ideas, and helped to build Hezbollah, the Shiite militia in southern Lebanon.
When Mr. Ahmadinejad was first elected nearly two years ago, Iranian political analysts said his victory did not represent the rise of hard-liners as much as it did the militarization of the system of governance. It is unclear if the president or the supreme leader knew about the seizure of the Britons in advance.
But since it occurred, it has been used to rally Mr. Ahmadinejad’s base at a time when his support seemed to be fraying. The president, elected on a platform of economic populism, promising a redistribution of the state’s vast oil wealth, has been sharply criticized for failing to deliver on his economic promises.