Iran Watch: The Man in the Middle
By Kamal Nazer Yasin for ISN
Closing his eyes to pervasive warnings and intense objections from his own flank, Ahmadinejad recently picked a highly unpopular man as his first vice president, a job similar in function to that of a prime minister. The move, coming days before the end of his first four-year term, has precipitated a major crisis for his new government that that has been sworn in.
The man at the center of the controversy is Esfandyar Rahim Mashai, a right-wing ideologue whose provocative actions and words have riled and outraged conservatives of all stripes: Among his ‘misdeeds’ is his vow of friendship with the people of Israel.
The hostility to the move had been so intense that no less than Supreme Leader of Iran Ali Khamenei was forced to express objection by sending a written confidential letter of dismay to the president; a request that was ignored for several days, inflaming the passions further.
According to newspaper reports, the powerful minister of intelligence, Mohsen Ejei, was sacked because he had organized five other members of the inner cabinet against the president's recalcitrance. This was followed by the axing of the minister of culture, former Revolutionary Guards officer Safar Harandi. However, since the latter's firing meant that over half of the ministers had been sacked in less than four years, according to Article 136 of the Iranian Constitution, the government's legality was no longer guaranteed.
On 20 July, with only 14 days left to the end of his government, the conservative-dominated parliament had no choice but to issue a warning to Ahamdinejad for new cabinet confirmations of the old government. The same day, Ahmadinejad reinstated the minister of culture to avoid his government's breakdown. However, this was not the end of the political crisis as, on the same day, over 200 MPs wrote an open letter of support for the former minister of intelligence, who was the cabinet's only remaining cleric and a Khamenei appointee. This was followed by intense lobbying by Qom high clergy to reprimand Ahmadinejad for his insubordination and defiance.
At this point, the crisis refuses to go away, since Ahmadinejad, while forced to drop the first VP position, has created two new positions for Mashai, that of aide-de-camp and chief of office protocol.
While some people in Iran are attributing Ahmadinejad's perplexing moves to some sort of grand conspiracy to distract the protest movement, there is greater evidence to suggest otherwise. According to reliable sources, far from a coup de theatre hatched to confound the protesters, the crisis has opened major fissures within the establishment. According to the same sources, Ahmadinejad's fondness for Mashai is both genuine and a matter of principle.
The man in the limelight
Mashai was 18 years old when the revolution broke out. The next year, he joined the Revolutionary Guards (RGCI) in the northern town of Ramsar. He was recruited the RGCI intelligence unit because of the distinction he had displayed in combating local cells of the MEC (a radical Islamic-anarchist group whose encampments in Iraq had recently come under Iraqi army attack). He was then sent to Iranian Kurdistan to uproot the indigenous armed groups there.
Next, he shifted careers by joining the fledging Ministry of Intelligence. His expertise was reportedly on the cultural-propagandistic side of counterinsurgency. While in Kurdistan, he met Ahmadinejad, who was the governor of Khoy in northwest Iran. The two seem to have struck a deep bond since to cement their friendship, Mashai's daughter was promised to Ahmadinejad's son. By this time, Mashai was a rising star in the Iranian intelligence world, credited for conceiving several ideological-political plans for the ministry including a well-known "National Studies" project that was a model for several other ministry undertakings. This came abruptly to an end in 1987 with the surprise victory of reformist Mohammad Khatami in that year's presidential election.
Mashai subsequently moved to public radio where he introduced live pop music to the Islamic state. In 2003, when Ahmadinejad became Tehran mayor, he appointed Mashai as the city's cultural programming chief. It is believed that it was at this point that Ahmadinejad's ‘12th Imam end-of-the-world’ ideas came to germination. Most people credit Mashai for the intellectual transition. One of the controversial things Mashai did in this period was to turn the city's cultural hubs to religious studies centers; a move that cost the city a major cultural as well as financial loss.
Finally, in 2005, with Ahmadinejad’s presidential election victory, Mashai was transferred to the executive branch where under the innocuous position of cultural heritage and tourism chief, he became Ahmadinejad's top confidant and political aide. Mashai's expertise was relations with foreign media and governments. It was at this point that he made his controversial statement regarding the people of Israel.
Bad blood
While anti-Semitism is rife among conservative circles in Iran, the underlying causes of opposition to Mashai go beyond the issuing of a political statement. For his most uncompromising detractors, namely the conservative clerics, this was a perfect excuse to object to their loss of political power and prestige at the hands of the new upstarts from the Revolutionary Guards. And to the other rightist factions, this provided the pretext to undermine Ahmadinejad's aggressive depredations on their turf. Of course, there was more than one reason for objecting to Mashai: He had mixed music with Koran recitals, sat in dance performances in his foreign visits, and introduced pop culture to his menu of religious policy. For all these reasons, Mashai had become a symbol of right-wing discontent to Ahmadinejad.
According to the sources quoted above, in the last few days, there have been a phalanx of high-ranking visitors to Khamenei's office in downtown Tehran from members of the Assembly of Experts, the grand ayatollahs of Qom and several former powerful supporters of Ahmadinejad, all urging the Supreme Leader to curtail the president's willfulness. There is also a deep sense of disappointment and bitterness reported among these circles. At a time, when the establishment is under severe attack by the protest movement and sections of the polity, such divisiveness and disunity could prove to be extremely debilitating for the right wing. The question to ask is: Why has Ahmadinejad decided to wreak havoc on his own alliance and why has he chosen this particular moment for doing so?
Motivations
One could only speculate as to Ahmadinejad's true motives in this bizarre saga. However, there is much circumstantial evidence to enable us to form a number of hypotheses.
First, when Mashai's statement concerning relations with Israel was issued two years ago, and after a huge outcry was raised among the conservatives, Ayatollah Khamenei confined himself to a mild reprimand, saying only that the statement was "illogical and incorrect." This in itself was quite puzzling particularly when Mashai never seriously retracted from that position and Ahmadinejad continued his support for him. Observers in Iran believed at the time that Ahmadinejad-Khamenei duo were using Mashai to send a signal to Bush administration about their willingness to make a quid-pro-quo on the hot issue of Arab-Israel peace which remains one of the top concerns of Washington. Thus Mashai's continued tenor in the government despite dogged opposition is an affirmation of the duo's interest in a quid-pro-quo with the US.
Second, Khamenei's latest order of dismal was quite deferential to Mashai considering the kind of passionate enmity he has stirred in the country. In his letter, he used and emphasized the highly honorific word jenab to refer to Mashai. Third, Ahmadinejad knew well in advance, as indeed did all Iranians, that the re-appointment of Mashai would badly split his alliance, yet he went ahead and did it.
From the beginning of his career, Ahmadinejad has distinguished himself by his refusal to compromise to his rivals and enemies. In this context, Mashai's re-appointment can be a signal to the rival groups that the president is unbowed in his policies despite being battered by the country's protest movement. (In addition, this shows the astounding bond of friendship between Ahmadinejad and the Supreme Leader.)
There are two other hypotheses left to consider: Some in Iran are of the opinion that through this latest misstep, Ahmadinejad may be setting himself up as a willing sacrificial lamb in the event that the political crisis is Iran gets seriously out of hand; or that Khamenei may have a major surprise in store for the world, one that would completely overshadow the present controversy.
The man at the center of the controversy is Esfandyar Rahim Mashai, a right-wing ideologue whose provocative actions and words have riled and outraged conservatives of all stripes: Among his ‘misdeeds’ is his vow of friendship with the people of Israel.
The hostility to the move had been so intense that no less than Supreme Leader of Iran Ali Khamenei was forced to express objection by sending a written confidential letter of dismay to the president; a request that was ignored for several days, inflaming the passions further.
According to newspaper reports, the powerful minister of intelligence, Mohsen Ejei, was sacked because he had organized five other members of the inner cabinet against the president's recalcitrance. This was followed by the axing of the minister of culture, former Revolutionary Guards officer Safar Harandi. However, since the latter's firing meant that over half of the ministers had been sacked in less than four years, according to Article 136 of the Iranian Constitution, the government's legality was no longer guaranteed.
On 20 July, with only 14 days left to the end of his government, the conservative-dominated parliament had no choice but to issue a warning to Ahamdinejad for new cabinet confirmations of the old government. The same day, Ahmadinejad reinstated the minister of culture to avoid his government's breakdown. However, this was not the end of the political crisis as, on the same day, over 200 MPs wrote an open letter of support for the former minister of intelligence, who was the cabinet's only remaining cleric and a Khamenei appointee. This was followed by intense lobbying by Qom high clergy to reprimand Ahmadinejad for his insubordination and defiance.
At this point, the crisis refuses to go away, since Ahmadinejad, while forced to drop the first VP position, has created two new positions for Mashai, that of aide-de-camp and chief of office protocol.
While some people in Iran are attributing Ahmadinejad's perplexing moves to some sort of grand conspiracy to distract the protest movement, there is greater evidence to suggest otherwise. According to reliable sources, far from a coup de theatre hatched to confound the protesters, the crisis has opened major fissures within the establishment. According to the same sources, Ahmadinejad's fondness for Mashai is both genuine and a matter of principle.
The man in the limelight
Mashai was 18 years old when the revolution broke out. The next year, he joined the Revolutionary Guards (RGCI) in the northern town of Ramsar. He was recruited the RGCI intelligence unit because of the distinction he had displayed in combating local cells of the MEC (a radical Islamic-anarchist group whose encampments in Iraq had recently come under Iraqi army attack). He was then sent to Iranian Kurdistan to uproot the indigenous armed groups there.
Next, he shifted careers by joining the fledging Ministry of Intelligence. His expertise was reportedly on the cultural-propagandistic side of counterinsurgency. While in Kurdistan, he met Ahmadinejad, who was the governor of Khoy in northwest Iran. The two seem to have struck a deep bond since to cement their friendship, Mashai's daughter was promised to Ahmadinejad's son. By this time, Mashai was a rising star in the Iranian intelligence world, credited for conceiving several ideological-political plans for the ministry including a well-known "National Studies" project that was a model for several other ministry undertakings. This came abruptly to an end in 1987 with the surprise victory of reformist Mohammad Khatami in that year's presidential election.
Mashai subsequently moved to public radio where he introduced live pop music to the Islamic state. In 2003, when Ahmadinejad became Tehran mayor, he appointed Mashai as the city's cultural programming chief. It is believed that it was at this point that Ahmadinejad's ‘12th Imam end-of-the-world’ ideas came to germination. Most people credit Mashai for the intellectual transition. One of the controversial things Mashai did in this period was to turn the city's cultural hubs to religious studies centers; a move that cost the city a major cultural as well as financial loss.
Finally, in 2005, with Ahmadinejad’s presidential election victory, Mashai was transferred to the executive branch where under the innocuous position of cultural heritage and tourism chief, he became Ahmadinejad's top confidant and political aide. Mashai's expertise was relations with foreign media and governments. It was at this point that he made his controversial statement regarding the people of Israel.
Bad blood
While anti-Semitism is rife among conservative circles in Iran, the underlying causes of opposition to Mashai go beyond the issuing of a political statement. For his most uncompromising detractors, namely the conservative clerics, this was a perfect excuse to object to their loss of political power and prestige at the hands of the new upstarts from the Revolutionary Guards. And to the other rightist factions, this provided the pretext to undermine Ahmadinejad's aggressive depredations on their turf. Of course, there was more than one reason for objecting to Mashai: He had mixed music with Koran recitals, sat in dance performances in his foreign visits, and introduced pop culture to his menu of religious policy. For all these reasons, Mashai had become a symbol of right-wing discontent to Ahmadinejad.
According to the sources quoted above, in the last few days, there have been a phalanx of high-ranking visitors to Khamenei's office in downtown Tehran from members of the Assembly of Experts, the grand ayatollahs of Qom and several former powerful supporters of Ahmadinejad, all urging the Supreme Leader to curtail the president's willfulness. There is also a deep sense of disappointment and bitterness reported among these circles. At a time, when the establishment is under severe attack by the protest movement and sections of the polity, such divisiveness and disunity could prove to be extremely debilitating for the right wing. The question to ask is: Why has Ahmadinejad decided to wreak havoc on his own alliance and why has he chosen this particular moment for doing so?
Motivations
One could only speculate as to Ahmadinejad's true motives in this bizarre saga. However, there is much circumstantial evidence to enable us to form a number of hypotheses.
First, when Mashai's statement concerning relations with Israel was issued two years ago, and after a huge outcry was raised among the conservatives, Ayatollah Khamenei confined himself to a mild reprimand, saying only that the statement was "illogical and incorrect." This in itself was quite puzzling particularly when Mashai never seriously retracted from that position and Ahmadinejad continued his support for him. Observers in Iran believed at the time that Ahmadinejad-Khamenei duo were using Mashai to send a signal to Bush administration about their willingness to make a quid-pro-quo on the hot issue of Arab-Israel peace which remains one of the top concerns of Washington. Thus Mashai's continued tenor in the government despite dogged opposition is an affirmation of the duo's interest in a quid-pro-quo with the US.
Second, Khamenei's latest order of dismal was quite deferential to Mashai considering the kind of passionate enmity he has stirred in the country. In his letter, he used and emphasized the highly honorific word jenab to refer to Mashai. Third, Ahmadinejad knew well in advance, as indeed did all Iranians, that the re-appointment of Mashai would badly split his alliance, yet he went ahead and did it.
From the beginning of his career, Ahmadinejad has distinguished himself by his refusal to compromise to his rivals and enemies. In this context, Mashai's re-appointment can be a signal to the rival groups that the president is unbowed in his policies despite being battered by the country's protest movement. (In addition, this shows the astounding bond of friendship between Ahmadinejad and the Supreme Leader.)
There are two other hypotheses left to consider: Some in Iran are of the opinion that through this latest misstep, Ahmadinejad may be setting himself up as a willing sacrificial lamb in the event that the political crisis is Iran gets seriously out of hand; or that Khamenei may have a major surprise in store for the world, one that would completely overshadow the present controversy.