Iran

Old resolutions for the New Year

The seeming confidence about Iran rising as the United States stumbles masks serious infighting within the ranks of Iran’s ruling conservatives, comments Barbara Slavin

  The plane trees are in bud on Vali-asr Street — a majestic boulevard created by the Pahlavi kings and renamed by Iran’s Islamic rulers for the Shiite Muslim messiah, the 12th or Hidden Imam.
   Shops are selling goldfish and the seven items beginning with the letter ‘s’ that signify Nowruz, the Iranian New Year, a pre-Islamic holiday that remains the most popular event in this predominantly Shiite country.
   As Iranians mark their 29th Nowruz since the Islamic revolution, their leaders appear increasingly confident that the system they created is secure at home and growing in influence in the Middle East.
   More than half of eligible voters have just participated in parliamentary elections, defying predictions that turnout would be lower because of mass disqualification of reformist candidates.
   Next door in Iraq, Iran’s allies are solidifying control over Baghdad and the Shiite south. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has just completed a triumphal trip to Baghdad that contrasted with the furtive visits of top US officials.
   In Lebanon, Iran’s proudest creation, Hezbollah, is blocking formation of a new government, demanding a third of cabinet seats. Meanwhile, Hamas, a newer client, occupies half of Palestine, is growing in popularity and has demonstrated its ability to upstage US-brokered peace talks through rocket attacks on Israeli cities and towns. Iran’s nuclear programme also continues in defiance of three rounds of UN sanctions.
   Surveying this domain, Ali Larijani, Iran’s former top nuclear negotiator and a newly elected member of parliament, sees Iran rising as the United States stumbles.
  ‘The actions taken by the Americans, whatever the results of the conference in Annapolis, are doomed now’, Larijani said in an interview on 15 March, referring to slow-moving Palestinian-Israeli peace talks. ‘Annapolis is dead. … On Iraq, from the very outset we were after the creation of the government from the people.’
   Yet this seeming confidence masks serious infighting within the ranks of Iran’s ruling conservatives and major differences over domestic and foreign policies. Larijani resigned as nuclear negotiator last October because he was tired of being upstaged by Ahmadinejad.
   Larijani decided to run for parliament, he said, because it is the one Iranian institution that cannot be dismissed by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
   Winning a seat in the Shiite theological centre of Qom with more than 75 per cent of the votes, Larijani hopes to replace Gholam Ali Haddad-Adel, a relative of Khamenei by marriage, as parliamentary speaker.
   Ultra-conservatives close to Ahmadi-nejad and Haddad-Adel appear to have won the largest number of seats, but the final balance will not be known until run-off elections in April. Meanwhile, reformers appear to have at least held their own and may increase their representation, currently 39 seats.
   The reformers, Larijani and other pragmatic conservatives, including Tehran mayor Mohammad Baqr Qalibaf and former Revolutionary Guard commander Mohsen Rezaie, want to use the new parliament to check Ahmadi-nejad’s inflationary spending and inflammatory diplomacy and to prepare for presidential elections next year.
   With inflation over 20 per cent and unemployment more than 10 per cent, Tehran is awash in rumours that Khamenei will push Ahmadinejad to step aside. Qalibaf, Larijani, Rezaie and Haddad-Adel are among those who might run in Ahmadinejad’s stead.
   Others say Khamenei will stick with Ahmadinejad, primarily because the president has become so identified with the nuclear issue, which has widespread popular support.
  ‘Khamenei is ready to sacrifice the economy for the nuclear programme’, said Saeed Laylaz, an influential reformer and columnist. ‘Iran is looking for a geopolitical shield and this is because of the wrong policies of the United states.’
   Much will depend on the outcome of US presidential elections, which are being closely followed in Tehran.
   A Democratic victory could hurt Ahmadinejad, who has benefited from the harsh rhetoric of the Bush administration. Larijani, Rezaie and Qalibaf appear eager to use Iran’s rising regional profile in part as a bargaining chip to bring about negotiations with the United States on Iranian terms.
   Two years ago, Larijani sought back-channel talks with US national security adviser Stephen Hadley, going so far as to praise Hadley in an interview with me as a ‘logical thinker’. Hadley rebuffed the overture.
   The Bush administration has refused broad engagement unless Iran first suspends uranium enrichment.
   Asked if he still has a high opinion of Hadley, Larijani shook his head.
  ‘My idea has changed. I didn’t see him perform a miracle during this time’, Larijani said. ‘There were some good opportunities that emerged but unfortun-ately no good responses from them.’

Barbara Slavin is senior diplomatic correspondent of  USA Today

                          
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