Should we expect change in Iran?

In my article published in this space last week, I took note of the suspicion in some quarters in the United States that Iran may have been involved in the assassination attempt on Donald Trump. Both Tehran and Washington look at one another with great suspicion. Washington, more than Tehran, has been involved in killing senior officials of Iran. Most important of these actions was the well-planned drone attack by the United States security forces to kill General Kasem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard, while he was on his way to hold discussions in Iraq with the groups that were close to Tehran.

The question posed in the title of this essay is prompted by the recent elections in Iran in which the second round of voting led to the election of a seemingly moderate person to the presidency. The election was held to fill the position occupied by Ebrahim Raisi who died when his helicopter crashed while he was heading to a neighbouring country.

The second round was prompted by the result of the first round where there were several candidates, but none received at least 50 per cent of the votes cast for victory as required by the country’s constitution. Masoud Pezeshkian, the man eventually elected president, is a former minister of health and holds views that are moderate compared to those to which Ayatollah Khamenei, the supreme leader, subscribes. Khamenei has not seen eye to eye with the presidents put into office by previous elections. Pezeshkian’s opponent in the first round was Saeed Jalili, a hardline 58-year-old ideologue and intransient nuclear negotiator. He had a PhD which he received on the basis of a dissertation written on Prophet Muhammad’s (PBUH) approach to world affairs.

The Prophet (PBUH) had two phases as he preached God’s message. The first phase was when he went to Mecca after receiving God’s messages. The concentration at that time was on the need for personal piety and equal treatment of all God’s creatures, including women and black slaves. The second phase was the stay in Medina where the Prophet (PBUH) met with organised opposition, including from the city’s Jewish population. It was in the Medina period that the Prophet (PBUH) developed his world view. It is that view that has been the guide for the clerics who now govern Iran.

There was a very low turnout of voters in the first round of the Iranian election — only 40 per cent of the registered electorate turned out to vote. The second round posed a dilemma for those who stayed home in the first round. The elected president would not have the power even if he had the desire to significantly change the Islamic approach to governance. That notwithstanding, the voters were of the view that Pezeshkian may rule as a relative moderate although it was clear that he would not ease the restrictions the clerics had imposed on women. During the elections, videos appeared with him boasting of his youthful efforts to force women to wear the mandatory hijab.

Since Khamenei became the Supreme Leader in 1989, ten years after the 1979 founding of the Islamic State, five Iranian presidents — Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Mohammed Khatami, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Hassan Rouhani and Ebrahim Raisi — have come and gone but none was able to bring about lasting change in the way clerics managed domestic and external affairs.

Rafsanjani, an earlier holder of the presidency, brought the Islamic Republic close to the West and that troubled the orthodox clergy led by the Supreme Leader. Khatami troubled the conservative religious elite by suggesting that faith and freedom could coexist. Ahmadinejad was a populist who did not always look to his clerical masters for guidance in state affairs. Rouhani came close to the United States which led to the arms-control agreement not appreciated by Khamenei and his associates. It was only in Ebrahim Raisi, Khamenei found an ideal partner. It was generally believed that he would rise to the position of the Supreme Leader after the 85-year old current occupant of that position left the scene.

According to Karim Sadjadpour, a scholar of Iranian origin at the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Iran has a different president but its basic approach to domestic and world affairs is not likely to change. In an article contributed to The Washington Post under the title, ‘Different president, same Iran’, he sees Iran remaining a “spoiler in many national security portfolios, including conflicts in Gaza, Ukraine, Syria and Yemen as well as global efforts to manage nuclear proliferation, energy security, cybersecurity and terrorism.”

The new president “will likely have even less influence over these issues than previous presidents had, given his lack of a political base and popular mandate”. One senior European diplomat working in his country’s office in Tehran told Sadjadpour, “It is not about what Pezeshkian says he wants to do; it is all about what he is allowed to do — and there is no evidence to suggest the Revolutionary Guard will change the many policies antithetical to our interests and those of the Iranian people.” While the new president will not change — even attempt to do so — he is likely to appoint in critical positions more sophisticated people who understand and speak English which means that Tehran may be easier to engage with but also more difficult to isolate.

However, the most important question about Iran’s future and how the country works with the world outside is open once again. According to Reuel Marc Gerecht and Ray Tekeh, both scholars of foreign affairs, the fact that Raisi’s death has brought back the issue of succession to the aging Ali Khamenei to the front of Iranian politics is worrying. “All this augurs poorly for the Iranian people and the international community alike,” they wrote in a newspaper article. “The generation on the cusp of taking power sees domestic oppression and foreign aggression as indispensable to the success of the revolution. They are even more resentful of the public’s widely held democratic aspirations than Mr. Raisi’s generation, equating all forms of dissent with sedition against the republic and the faith. Mr. Raisi’s death may give these younger men an opportunity to finally have their day.” If this assessment is correct, Islamabad’s policymakers will have to deal with yet another uncertainty in the country’s immediate neighbourhood.