Iran Watch: Decisive Friday Prayer

Former Iranian president Hashemi Rafsanjani, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's old nemesis - and the man whose reputation was attacked by President Mahmood Ahmadinejad in June in a move that to some extent sparked Iran's first mass protest movement in 30 years - will break his eight-week-long silence and lead Tehran's noon-time Friday Prayer services today for as many as 100,000 people.

For a variety of reasons, this one-time event will be the talk of the town for weeks and months to come.   

First, the reformist triumvirate of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, reformist cleric Mehdi Karoubi and former president Mohammed Khtami indicate they also will attend the services for the first time ever. Of special significance will be the attendance of Mousavi, the leader of the opposition Green Wave party, in the nationally televised event.

Second, for 30 unbroken years, the Friday Prayers have been the exclusive preserve of conservatives and the hard right. Aside from uniformed men and government employees who must attend to keep up their reputations, and some hangers-on, the rest of the crowd is composed of hard-core loyalist forces and their family members. It includes cadres from state organs such as the security forces, propaganda departments and the like, plus hard-core loyalists in the Basij and the vigilante groups. 

This time around, those attending will have a very different profile. Mousavi supporters - who constitute the great majority - have a youngish and much-more culturally modern make-up. This development is already changing the stifling nature of these events. Predictably, this has raised alarm and anger among a myriad hardline forces.

The Kayhan newspaper, the voice of the distressed fundamentalists, gave vent to this apprehension in its 16 July editorial. The article, written by editor Hossein Shariatmadari, claims that most of those planning to attend the Prayer today don't even know how to pray. 

Rafsanjani's demarche

But apart from these sidebars, the most important reason to watch today's Friday Prayer services is Rafsanjani himself.

For nearly two months now, Tehran has been abuzz with speculation and rumor as to what Rafsanjani's next move would be. His last major intervention in the extraordinary series of events that plunged the Islamic Republic into its worst crisis was a remarkably prescient letter addressed to the Supreme Leader in which the former had urged Khamenei to intervene and stop an unfolding crisis from reaching disastrous proportions - in effect putting the brakes on Ahmadinejad.

Not only had Khamenei failed to take heed, by publicly rebuking Rafsanjani's vow of camaraderie on the eve of the election, he had added fuel to the growing inferno.

Rafsanjani has been largely silent since that date. He has also failed twice to lead the Friday Prayer though he is one of the four rotating presiding clerics for Tehran's services. Local media have been frantically speculating as to what he might say in his sermon-speech today.

"About half the Iranians are saying he will come down squarely in support of the protesters. The other half says he will back the unifying force of the Supreme Leader," one Iranian journalist told ISN Security Watch. "Whatever he does will have a major influence on the course of events."

According to the journalist, even if Rafsanjani were to strike a neutral or non-committal tone in his speech, the attendance of tens of thousands of Mousavi supporters would almost certainly lead to sporadic protest rallies after the Prayer. "His presence has provided a legitimate forum for the opposition to air their grievances after two weeks of heavy-handed repression."

Rafsanjani's past record shows that it is unlikely he will allow a historic opportunity like this to slip from his hand unproductively. But it is not easy to predict what position he will take. For one thing, even his closest associates have not been made privy to the content of the speech since his conversations are believed to be routinely intercepted by pro-Khamenei forces. Rafsanjani himself seems to be relishing the sense of unease among his enemies.

Some hardline papers and news services have resorted to outright threats. In one a recent dispatch, a hardline website says that if Rafsanjani chooses to publicly support the protest movement, the worshipers in attendance will respond with slogans targeting "the plunderers of the national wealth" - a euphemism for Rafsanjani's family. Others, such as the centrist Khabar newspaper published by the Larijani clan, have taken to expressing a kind of forced optimism in its recent articles, hoping to see Rafsanjani come to the rescue.      

There are some clues as to what we may be expect from today's speech to be found both in Rafsanjani's character and his modus operandi. First, reading through several memoirs written by Rafsanjani, one gets the sense that he likes to view himself as a savior of the nation. Second, he has told several people that he would never undertake a political move unless assured of the maximum possible success in advance.

At this moment in history, Rafsanjani has two constituencies he must nurture before he can stand up to the Khamenei-Ahmadinejad confederacy. The first one is the Traditionalist clerical camp, which constitutes the bulk of the clergy and which is alarmed at Khamenei's adventurism and dictatorial tendencies, but too afraid to accept meaningful radical changes. And the second one is the burgeoning mass protest movement that is highly modern and forward-looking.

Rafsanjani's task today will be to satisfy both constituencies without excessively alienating either camp. In a situation where the mass movement has been set back by brute force, he must look at behind-the-scenes maneuvers among the Qum clergy as the most secure way to unseat both Ahmadinejad and Khamenei.  

This will not be easy, as there are irreconcilable differences among the members of each constituency. For example, the Traditionalists insist on a single velayat faghih (top cleric-leader) to lead Iran, and for now, that figure must be Khamenei - albeit a much more circumscribed Khamenei. Anything less would be considered too destabilizing.

This fact will not sit well with the young protesters who have been arrested, beaten and killed by Khamenei goons. Here, Rafsanjani is likely to lose some support. That said, he is expected to make up for this with calls for recognizing certain demands on the part of the protesters, such as a speedy release of those imprisoned or ending calumnious attacks on those unable to defend themselves, such as the scores who have been tortured into making forced confessions.

Above all else, Rafsanjani will try to come across as a national leader of great stature who forgives wrongs done to him and urges reconciliation, obliquely referring to the voting fraud as something that must be forgiven for the good of Islam and Iran.