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With reformists suppressed, Ajad now turns on conservatives

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  • With reformists suppressed, Ajad now turns on conservatives

    Note that Iranian conservatives are now highlighting Ajad's links to the messianic cult of the Imam.


    http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/17/wo...html?ref=world
    July 16, 2010
    Iran’s President Renews Pressure on Conservatives
    By WILLIAM YONG and ROBERT F. WORTH

    TEHRAN — Having successfully suppressed the opposition uprising that followed last summer’s disputed presidential election, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his supporters are now renewing their efforts to marginalize another rival group — Iran’s traditional conservatives.

    Conservative rivals of Mr. Ahmadinejad are fighting back, publicly accusing him of sidelining clerics and the Parliament, pursuing an “extremist” ideology, and scheming to consolidate control over all branches of Iran’s political system.

    “Now that they think they have ejected the reformists, maybe they think it is time to remove their principalist opponents,” said Morteza Nabavi, the editor of a mainstream conservative newspaper, in an unusually blunt interview published Friday in the weekly Panjereh. Iranian conservatives, including Mr. Ahmadinejad’s group, prefer the term “principalism” to “fundamentalism.”

    The strikes that broke out in the Tehran bazaar last week, while provoked by a proposed income tax increase, reflect the growing rift between the conservative factions, with the merchants, or bazaaris, on the side of the traditionalists.

    Mr. Ahmadinejad has often fed the traditional conservatives’ fears; he has referred to the divide among conservatives, warning that “the regime has only one party” in a speech published Monday on his official Web site that provoked outrage among his conservative rivals.

    “I think we are seeing a kind of Iranian McCarthyism, with Ahmadinejad disposing of all the people who are not with him by accusing them of being anti-revolutionary or un-Islamic,” said an Iranian political analyst, who refused to be identified for fear of retribution.

    In a sense, the power struggle among conservatives is a return to the status quo before last year’s presidential election, which unleashed the worst internal dissent Iran has experienced in decades. The street protests were widely seen in the West as a fundamental challenge to Iran’s theocracy. But after a year in which outpourings of public anger failed to effect tangible change, the dust has settled to once again reveal a more basic split within Iran’s political elite.

    The rift is partly a generational one, with Mr. Ahmadinejad leading a combative cohort of conservatives supported by Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards. On the other side is an older generation of leaders who derive their authority from their links to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979. Reformist lawmakers now represent a largely impotent minority in the Parliament.

    “Ahmadinejad wants a new definition of conservatism,” the political analyst said. “He wants to say that we are the true conservatives and not you anymore.”

    The older conservatives, including clerics, lawmakers and leaders of the bazaar, which is the center of Iran’s ancient system of trade and commerce, have long questioned Mr. Ahmadinejad’s competence and even accused his ministers of corruption. But recently they have gone further, accusing Mr. Ahmadinejad’s faction of distorting the principles of the Islamic Revolution and following a messianic cult that rejects the intermediary role of the clergy.

    To some, those criticisms amount to a veiled plea by the old-line conservatives to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to rein in the president or even to remove him.

    The divisions erupted last month when conservative members of Parliament voted to block Mr. Ahmadinejad’s efforts to seize control of Iran’s largest academic institution, Azad University, which has campuses throughout the country and enormous financial assets. The university was founded by Ali Akbar Rafsanjani, a former president and one of the central figures among traditional conservatives. After the vote, a spokesman for Mr. Ahmadinejad declared that the lawmakers had “aided the conspiracy,” a phrase often used against street protesters and terrorist groups.

    The next day, a government-backed demonstration formed outside the Parliament building, with protesters denouncing Ali Larijani, the speaker of Parliament and a conservative rival to Mr. Ahmadinejad. “We will reveal the treacherous MPs,” read one poster shown in pictures published by ILNA, a semiofficial Iranian news agency. In Qum, pro-government students distributed leaflets saying “Mr. Larijani, give us back our vote, you no longer represent us.”

    Mr. Larijani struck back, deriding his critics as “impudent, without logic and controversy mongers.”

    Ayatollah Khamenei has tried to appear neutral in the university dispute, issuing orders to Mr. Ahmadinejad and Mr. Rafsanjani that both sides should suspend efforts to make changes to the university’s charter.

    Since then, another front has opened up against the administration. Members of Iran’s merchant class, the bazaaris, have risen up to challenge Mr. Ahmadinejad’s plans to squeeze them for more tax revenue. Tehran’s central Grand Bazaar, a vast, labyrinthine complex of arched tunnels and courtyards, has been closed in protest for more than a week, and the strike has spread to other major cities.

    Though the political dimension of this dispute has yet to fully take shape, Iran’s merchant class has strong links with the traditional conservative party, the Motalefeh, whose members also have crucial positions in Azad University. Mr. Rafsanjani was once a member of Motalefeh and continues to maintain strong links with it.

    Traditional conservatives have clashed with Mr. Ahmadinejad’s administration over a number of issues in the past year, including controversial cabinet appointments and a major effort to overhaul Iran’s decades-old system of state subsidies. In April, tensions increased when conservative lawmakers called for the arrest of Iran’s first vice president, Mohammad-Reza Rahimi, on corruption charges.

    But lately, the language has sharpened on both sides. On Monday, one prominent conservative lawmaker, Omidvar Rezai, warned that Mr. Ahmadinejad’s government had violated the Iranian Constitution and that the Parliament “may have to make use of its legal powers,” including impeachment and the removal of the president, according to the news Web site Khabar Online.

    Last month, many conservatives were shocked when Hassan Khomeini, the grandson of Ayatollah Khomeini, was prevented from making a speech by pro-Ahmadinejad hecklers at an event to commemorate his grandfather’s death.

    “The behavior of extremists who are not open to debate or logic has opened a divide within the principalists,” said Mohammad Ashfrafi-Esfahani, a senior cleric and a member of the body that oversees Iran’s political parties, in comments published by ILNA. “This group spares no one, not even the house of the imam.” Ayatollah Khomeini is referred to in Iran as the imam.

    A June 21 editorial on Khabar Online, which is believed to be linked to Mr. Larijani, warned of “an extreme movement, wearing the clothes of Islam and the revolution.”

    Mr. Nabavi, the newspaper editor, also suggested that Mr. Ahmadinejad’s faction belonged to a cult — banned decades ago by Ayatollah Khomeini — that puts great emphasis on the prophesied return of Shiite Islam’s 12th imam, who is said to have disappeared in the ninth century. The accusation is familiar, but conservatives have until now refrained from making it so clearly and openly.

    “These people say they have direct contact with the 12th imam so they can lead us,” Mr. Nabavi said in the interview. “This is not just a matter of opposition to government by the clergy but something much deeper.”


    Nazila Fathi contributed reporting. William Yong reported from Tehran, and Robert F. Worth from Washington.

  • #2
    Originally posted by citanon View Post
    Note that Iranian conservatives are now highlighting Ajad's links to the messianic cult of the Imam.


    http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/17/wo...html?ref=world
    Its not a new accusation. Ahmadinejad's spiritual mentor, Ayatollah Mohammad-Taghi Mesbah Yazdi, has long been suspected of belonging to an extremist end-time cult called Hojjatieh. And so has Ahmadinejad.

    Comment


    • #3
      Originally posted by 1980s View Post
      Its not a new accusation. Ahmadinejad's spiritual mentor, Ayatollah Mohammad-Taghi Mesbah Yazdi, has long been suspected of belonging to an extremist end-time cult called Hojjatieh. And so has Ahmadinejad.
      I thought that it was mainly people in the West pointing this out. Is this the first time Conservatives in Iran have started accusing him of being extremist?

      Comment


      • #4
        If Khamenei loses his base of support since he is so desperate to get Ajad to make Khamenei jr. the next Supreme Ayatollah, things should get interesting. How would the Basiji and Revolutionary Guards fare in taking on the rest of Iran?

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by Skywatcher View Post
          If Khamenei loses his base of support since he is so desperate to get Ajad to make Khamenei jr. the next Supreme Ayatollah, things should get interesting. How would the Basiji and Revolutionary Guards fare in taking on the rest of Iran?

          If the army jumps in, then you have a civil war. So far the army has not been willing to go there. They are the junior service in terms of funding but enjoy wide support among the people because they serve Iran not a cause. Its within the realm of possibility that Iran might fall completely to A-jad and his supporters. If the Army doesn't act the ultimately A-jad has the political, militiary and economic might to win.

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by citanon View Post
            I thought that it was mainly people in the West pointing this out. Is this the first time Conservatives in Iran have started accusing him of being extremist?
            Accusations of Mesbah Yazdi belonging to Hojjatieh go back to the 1980s. Ahamdinejad has been rumoured to belong to this group too, but i am not aware of any direct claim as such being made publicly. Altho, Ahamdinejad has been publicly rebuked before by conservative clerics for trying to associate himself and his government with the 'Hidden Imam' and messianic rhetoric.

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by zraver View Post
              If the army jumps in, then you have a civil war. So far the army has not been willing to go there. They are the junior service in terms of funding but enjoy wide support among the people because they serve Iran not a cause. Its within the realm of possibility that Iran might fall completely to A-jad and his supporters. If the Army doesn't act the ultimately A-jad has the political, militiary and economic might to win.
              Another problem for Ajad is that there were reports of senior officers in the Revolutionary Guards being arrested last year during the election protests, one can only imagine what goes on with the rank and file.

              Comment


              • #8
                Dinnerjackets just trying to silence all critics of his regime and its foolish behavior on the international scene. He is a complete failure as a leader both at home and abroad. Himself and his regime can pretty much have whatever they want as far as material objects, its the Iranian people that suffer due to sanctions etc. The man is nothing more then a terrorist supporter, a bullshit artist and a scourge to his own people and their well being. Trying to relate himself and his following to anything near religion is an insult to all religions everywhere.
                Last edited by Dreadnought; 21 Jul 10,, 14:15.
                Fortitude.....The strength to persist...The courage to endure.

                Comment


                • #9
                  I wholeheartedly disagree with reformist being suppressed, may be temporarily but not for ever, revolutions, non-violent or otherwise rarely have steady tempo. Seeds for demise of this police state brutal theocracy have been planted and they will just keep growing.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by Aryajet View Post
                    I wholeheartedly disagree with reformist being suppressed, may be temporarily but not for ever, revolutions, non-violent or otherwise rarely have steady tempo. Seeds for demise of this police state brutal theocracy have been planted and they will just keep growing.
                    Well said Aryajet.
                    Fortitude.....The strength to persist...The courage to endure.

                    Comment

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