'Sham' president declares war on liberal Iranians

Scotland on Sunday:

Sun 31 Jul 2005

NIR BOMS AND REZA BULORCHI

OFFICIALLY, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the incoming Iranian "elected" president, will assume his post next month, but his presence is already felt in the political circles and on the streets of Tehran. Since his election, under the banner of a renewed Islamic revolution, the clerical regime hanged six people and sentenced another to death in the space of seven days.

The elections were a sham and the controversy about polling irregularities is far from settled. The outgoing president, Mohammad Khatami, announced the forthcoming release of a report documenting the extent of electoral violations and smear campaigns. A similar account, further exposing factional disarray within the theocratic rule, was introduced by former parliament speaker, mullah Mehdi Karroubi, who lost his presidential bid in the first round.

While Ahmadinejad is portrayed as a "populist" son of a blacksmith, hoisting the flag of class warfare against the "wretched rich and corrupt", his win can be attributed to his unquestioned loyalty to the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the full support of the Islamic Republic Revolutionary Guards Corps' top brass.

A former commander of the Qods (Jerusalem) Force in the Guard Corps, tasked with planning and execution of terrorist plots and assassination abroad, Ahmadinejad was catapulted to the presidency by the ultra conservative faction. His presidency was backed by Khamenei and engineered by the IRGC.

Indeed, the real story of this election is the metamorphosis of the Guards Corps from an ideological army to an omnipresent political/military powerhouse. With Ahmadinejad's win, the IRGC is now able to spread it wings over all key centres of power in Iran. This may account for the most major power realignment within the ruling theocracy since Ayatollah Khomenei's death in 1989.

The first success of the IRGC's resurgence took place during national municipal elections in 2003. Then, in the February 2004 parliamentary elections, at least 40 former IRGC commanders won seats. Shortly after, Khamenei appointed a top IRGC general as head of Iran's national broadcasting.

As an ominous sign of things to come, Ahmadi Moghaddam, the No 2 in the paramilitary Bassij, was appointed by Khamenei as Iran's new chief of police. The appointment of Moghaddam, who once said "a country where liberal ideas rule will get nowhere", brings Iran's regular police force under the domination of the IRGC and signals the readiness to rein in social and political dissent.

State-run media reported the crackdown on "social vice" and on "shops and public places in where public chastity and Islamic values are ignored" has already begun. A senior security official told reporters that "mal-veiled or unveiled individuals inside and outside of cars" would be the target of arrests. Responding to the looming crackdown, a group of students from Tehran University rallied, carrying the banner declaring, "Infidelity does not overthrow a regime, Suppression does". The students also demanded the release of all political prisoners.

The IRGC has full control over Tehran's terror network and has won the admiration of Khamenei for "running effective intelligence and diplomatic operations" in Iraq. Khamenei has also placed Iran's nuclear development under the IRGC's full command. Further, active or former commanders of the IRGC maintain control over many of the principal dailies, the municipal councils and the Supreme National Security Council.

In the aftermath of Ahmadinejad's win, and in the absence of any feasible alternative for engagement or military action that will neutralise the threats posed by Tehran, other alternatives must be considered in the complex Euro-American Tehran policy equation.

A housewife in Tehran recently expressed hope that an Ahmadinejad presidency would hasten the regime's collapse. "This is the best result," she said. "The moment of real change has just got much closer."

She may well have captured one of the strategic implications of Ahmadinejad's presidency for the success of democracy movement in Iran. And this is where the American policy towards Iran needs to gravitate. It is a security and policy imperative since only a fundamental change in Tehran will ultimately rid Iran and the region of the ayatollahs' menace and the pending nuclear weapon that may soon be at its service.

Nir Boms is the vice-president of the Centre for Freedom in the Middle East. Reza Bulorchi is the executive director of the US Alliance for Democratic Iran.