Occidental Malakut

I- Stealing the vote and crackdown

The post-election political crisis in Iran , initially quite murky and perplexing, both to domestic and foreign observers, seems to have clarified itself for the most part. Two months and a half into the still unfolding crisis, it is now history that a military-intelligence gang within the ruling conservative establishment simply decided to steal the vote, thwart the rightful winner – Mir-Hossein Mousavi - and produce a fraudulent winner – Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – the establishment’s darling, though a spoiled baby and erratic, unpredictable, super demagogue rabble-rouser. Subsequently, once the incredulous majority who had been cheated in broad daylight of their votes came out in millions to protest – peacefully – the putschist gang violently unleashed its tremendous military-security prowess against the pro-reform, pro-change camp and unarmed peaceful demonstrators. The horrendous details of the post-election crackdown, violence and mendacious xenophobic propaganda have been widely reported and equally denounced by the international community. The world public opinion is ruefully aware of cold-blooded killings on the streets, detention of more than 4000 people inclusive of hundreds of well-known political and civil society activists, torture of prominent detainees with the expressed objective of extraction of bogus confessions, and as has come to light in recent weeks and days, brutal and in cases gang rape of women and even young men at the Kahrizak detention camp. The televised sham trials held during the past three weeks, in the run-up to and following the official endorsement of Ahmadinead as the incoming president, have further revealed  the mindset of the putschist gang as well as the political programme behind the election coup and the crackdown – systematic political defamation and physical elimination of all other forces and currents with a differing or critical outlook from the active political scene as part and parcel of the on-going violent campaign towards total consolidation of the power structure in the hands of the shadowy gang. The blatantly anti-democratic, anti-republican thinking and disposition of the gang geared towards erecting a North Korean-style governance with similar foreign policy objectives are unmistakable.

The election coup, as it has come to light in bits and pieces, went into action in the early evening hours on the elections day, Friday, June 12th. While voting was still under way, the main election headquarters of Mousavi was attacked, occupied and a large number of political activists on the premises were taken into custody. A few hours later, almost around the same time as the voting booths closed, several hundred motorcyclists in full gear converged on the Interior Ministry and cordoned off the whole area; a perfect surrealistic drama a la Luis Bunuel. While it is not publicly known yet as to who entered the building and what exactly took place during the succeeding hours at the Election Headquarters inside the Ministry, what is already known about the circumstances is quite revealing. Sometime during the evening Mr. Mousavi had received a call from the Election Headquarters congratulating him on his victory. While preparing for the press conference to make the announcement, he had been cautioned from the Office of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, not to proceed with the intended announcement. Having already been in touch with that Office and some other high officials during the day on various voting irregularities and in the evening on suspicious events, including the attack earlier in the evening on his headquarters, late in the evening he had dispatched a personal emissary to the Ayatollah’s Office. There the bewildered emissary had received baffling news from those present at the Office pointing to Ahmadinejad’s victory in the first round, and a clear message advising Mousavi against the victory announcement. Given the heavy security activity around the Ministry – close to his office - and the content of the exchanged messages, Mousavi nonetheless went ahead with the press conference and declared himself as the definitive victor of the race. The same evening the editor of Moussavi’s daily, Kalemeh Sabz (Green Word) had been advised in very clear terms from the Office of General Prosecutor, Saeed Mortazavi, not to carry the title of victory for the paper on Saturday.

Around midnight, while no counting could have taken place yet, the Election Headquarters announced that out of the first five million votes counted, Ahmadinejad was the frontrunner with almost 69 percent of the tally. Quite unlike the previous established practice of counting the vote ballot box by ballot box and announcing the aggregated result by precinct and ultimately by townships, towns and cities (with the vote count coming in first from smaller communities), the counting this time around started in this bizaare manner and continued with announcing the result of additional five million blocks. The final tally, over 39 million votes, around 85 percent of the eligible voters, was announced in mid-afternoon on Saturday, June 13th, giving Ahmadinejad around 64 percent of the vote. A few minutes later a lengthy message was read on national TV and radio in which the Ayatollah praised a historic participation in presidential elections and congratulated Ahmadinejad as the winner, thus hastily confirming and sealing the outcome and confronting the challenger with a fait accompli. Mousavi’s statement reiterating his rightful win had already been issued a few hours earlier.

As it has been revealed later, from different sources, the vote distribution among the four candidates, particularly between the preferred incumbent and the despised challenger, had been decided through a software programme, which had been fed into the vote counting system once it had been established on Friday afternoon that Mousavi had carried the day. The “team” who had entered the Election Headquarters under the cover of the security cordon seem to have been the ones who pulled off the late night shenanigans. The details of the vote count as announced incrementally in subsequent days on the official website of the Interior Ministry betrayed a wide range of incredible results, among others, precise, similar mathematical symmetry in many precincts and vote results as a multiple of hundred in many others. Moreover, hundreds of cases and examples of irregularities and violations of sorts, prior to and during the voting process, on the part of the election officials and supervisors, military (Sepah) and paramilitary (Baseej)  supporters of Ahmadinejad, as documented by all the three cheated candidates (Mousavi, Karroubi and Rezai) and submitted to the Guardian Council, failed to make a dent in an already fully executed scenario. The Council, under heavy public pressure, ultimately consented to the recount of a random 10 percent of the ballot boxes. The review, completed in 15 days and carried live on national TV for propaganda purposes, interestingly enough, turned up further evidence for irregularity and foul play, including large batches of unfolded ballot papers exhibiting the name of Ahmadinejad written in the same colour and the same handwriting!   The Council, unmoved at all by the voluminous hard evidence of systematic irregularity and high-tech vote manipulation, duly confirmed the veracity and legality of the process as had already been established by the Ayatollah the day after the vote.                         

The violent response to peaceful demonstrations as of Saturday, June 13th indicated advance preparation on the part of the Revolutionary Guards, police, Baseej paramilitary forces, and the shadowy plainclothes vigilantes. The brutal attack of a large group of plainclothes vigilantes on the Tehran University dormitory on the night of June 14th, where many students were beaten up, thrown out of windows, with many rooms and facilities damaged and destroyed; rampage of a residential complex where some Majlis deputies lived; and rampage by regular police units, Baseej militias and plainclothes vigilantes in various parts of the capital for a number of nights all pointed to a coordinated military-security scheme aiming at creating a sense of havoc, uncertainty, fear and intimidation among the public and blaming them on the opposition protesting and defying the election outcome. University dormitories were attacked and bloodied in similar fashion in Isfahan and Shiraz during the week. State control of mass media, particularly the national TV, and heavy censorship of the independent and pro-reform press, along with the rupture of text messaging service, and filtering of foreign broadcasts and Internet, put the government in the unique position to project a totally distorted picture of post-election developments and claim the prerogative to impose a heavy-handed security atmosphere in Tehran and a number of other major cities. Simultaneously, while popular peaceful protests were violently attacked and broken and hundreds of young protesters arrested en masse, many more political activists, journalists, lawyers, academics and civil society activists were summarily rounded up and taken into custody, some to the Evin Prison and others to secret unknown places. Leaked revelations in recent weeks portray a gruesome, ugly picture of how the young detainees have been treated at the Kahrizak detention camp – which was announced closed after 40 days once certain cases of death due to torture came to light. As part of a parallel track, many of the prominent political detainees have been paraded in the farcical show trials in recent weeks, especially in the first and fourth sessions of the “court”, held respectively on August 1st and 25th. In the course of these two sessions a number of these detainees, who had been held in solitary confinement and subjected to intensive psychological (white) torture since their arrest in mid-June, had been forced into reading from prepared statements confirming personal and organizational complicity in the Western-instigated “velvet revolution”, denouncing their respective organizations (political parties), and recanting political activism henceforth.

II- Who are the putschist gang?

The nature of the election coup and the political and security circumstances surrounding the shocking development, immediately followed by the sudden rounding up of political activists and a well-coordinated, heavy and ferocious repressive campaign, pointed unmistakably in the direction of the involvement of the military-intelligence community, and in particular the Revolutionary Guards Corps (Sepah-e Pasdaran). The Guards Corps (Sepah) - while a military force similar to the regular classic army which is apolitical and professional - also considers itself as the “guardian” of the Revolution with a peculiar political mission to safeguard the ruling system [Government of Velayat-e Faqih] against all kinds of threats, whether internal and external. The particular claim to an intrinsic unique mission to fight against and suppress internal “threats and enemies”, and the policies and measures emanating from such a belief and outlook, have since the end of the Iran-Iraq War in late 1980s been a bone of contention. While Sepah and its hard-line supporters within the conservative block have followed the line of political engagement – and all that it requires - other political and ideological forces and currents within the existing governance structure - the wide spectrum of moderate/pragmatist and pro-reform forces and currents – have opposed such engagement as unconstitutional and emphasized instead its purely external-oriented military mission. This year, as in previous election campaigns, the question of legality/propriety (constitutionality) of Sepah’s involvement in politics and the political arena, and by corollary, the involvement of its associated Baseej paramilitary militias, turned out to become quite a heated issue during the campaign, particularly that Sepah’s overtly expressed favourite candidate happened to be the incumbent Ahmadinejad. In light of the critical role the Sepah and Baseej had played back in 2005 in getting Ahmadinejad out of the box and into the office, and his extremely generous remunerating policies during the past four years to expand, deepen and institutionalize Sepah’s direct economic role and political stake in the power structure – inclusive of packing the Majlis (Parliament) with over 100 Sepahis – the pro-reform, pro-change forces were visibly apprehensive and vocal in protesting Sepah’s political engagement in the election campaign.

Given the nature of the Sepah-Baseej institutional intervention in the 2005 elections, and also considering the limited (minority) voting constituency of the entire conservative block, the pro-reform quarters were generally of the view during the campaign that a high voter turnout (over 70 percent) would give them such a huge margin that would comfortably offset up to 5 million vote manipulation through various means and mechanisms.  This was the kind of rigging that these quarters seemed to have considered possible and doable. Therefore, their efforts appeared to have been geared towards preventing such an eventuality, including through working for a high turnout and also making it politically difficult for undue intervention, and at the practical level, through their own active and effective participation in monitoring the election process at different stages. The rather unexpected emergence during the last few weeks of the election campaign of a dynamic, lively political atmosphere and an energized popular civic movement – later dubbed the Green Movement – composed of all walks of life, especially jubilant, enthusiastic youth, women and university students, gave the pro-reform, pro-change camp the almost total certainty of a comfortable, even landslide, victory in the first round.. Practical lack of any credible political force, whether inside or outside, calling for non-participation or worse  boycotting of the election, contrary to the situation in 2005, had also helped to rally and mobilize the largest voting block ever, further assuring the pro-reform platform of Mousavi’s certain victory.

In a rather quizzical manner, as it is known now, the putschist gang – and in a sense, the entire ruling system, inclusive of the Ayatollah himself - also seem to have considered the expected huge turnout a blessing in disguise. Contrary to the generally known view and analysis of the conservatives that a low turnout would afford them a higher chance of win because of their institutional capability to mobilize and bring their constituency to the voting booth, this time around, a huge popular participation in the elections had been deemed as a golden opportunity to be propagandized as a referendum of sorts in support and defense of the “Government of the Velayat-e Faqih” and the person of the Ayatollah – provided, of course, that the outcome would remain in friendly hands, as the election coup later ensured. The totally peaceful street demonstrations during the final weeks of the campaign, even side-by-side simultaneous demonstrations by enthusiastic even zealous supporters of rival candidates up to early morning hours, and practical absence of any violence from Baseej militias and their shadowy plainclothes allies, have been analyzed in political quarters as an indication of a deliberate if unannounced official policy intended to encourage and facilitate as high a participation as possible in a peaceful, tranquil and violence-free atmosphere. Such a peaceful co-existence of the rival camps in the run-up to the election stands in blatant contrast to the violence unleashed against the opposition political elite and the peaceful demonstrators as early as the day after the elections had been stolen and the fraudulent outcome announced and endorsed.        

What happened in actuality at the end of the elections day went against the worst possible scenarios conceivable to the pro-reform camp. In retrospect, everybody seems to have been caught by total surprise – except, of course, the rather few in the say; those who had planned and pulled off the election coup. As it has come to light, mostly in the form of news pieces and analyses here and there, on heavily filtered news and political websites, or in the tongue-in-cheek allusions of political activists in post-election statements or interviews, the Sepah’s military command in charge of the capital’s security – Thar-Allah Headquarters (Command) – has acted as the central nerve and control system of the election emergency plan. The Command which had been established a decade ago in the wake of the student demonstrations in July 2009, and is composed of a large number of commando units especially trained for urban anti-riot action, has enjoyed from the outset and further developed a special, close working liaison with the Office of the Supreme Leader and the Office of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, headed by Dr. Firoozabadi, a physician by training. Its former commander – General Mohammad Ali (Aziz) Jafari – is now the Commander-in-Chief of the Sepah. For operational coordinating purposes, commander of Sepah’s ground forces has also served as the commander of Thar-Allah.

As the story goes, a detailed emergency and action plan had been prepared by this Command some time prior to the election day, to be implemented in stages, including as regards Ahmadinejad’s election campaign and in particular the rather innovative one on one televised debates between the candidates.  Given Ahmadinejad’s well-known disposition to making harsh personal attacks, bland accusations, and controversial remarks, he is reported to have been given the green light to freely attack and smear Mousavi – his principal rival – and other prominent political figures of the Islamic Republic during the past three decades, including in particular former President Hashemi Rafsanjani. The original intent and expectation behind this aggressive campaign posture had been that his rabble-rousing smearing words and pretentious down-to-earth “plebian” outlook would portray him as the oppressed underdog as well as the lone fighter against everybody else, and that a radical-sounding supposedly anti-establishment pose would endear him in the eyes of the populace generally disenchanted with the existing system and its past policies. Contrary to the expectations of the emergency plan, his unprincipled conduct in the course of the debates, particularly the one with Mousavi, served to beat the original intent and purpose. The way the debates unfurled in actuality served as an eye-opening, unprecedented political experiment that practically helped to  expose the incumbent’s failed economic policies, self-serving confrontational foreign policy, and more importantly, served to totally discredit him personally as an out-and-out demagogue, unscrupulous populist political animal, and worse, a pathetic, clumsy liar – a man just too small for the job. The debates simultaneously served to portray a much more congenial picture of Mousavi as a soft-spoken, seasoned, mature politician representing principle, reason and moderation and better policies in various fields through reliance on collective wisdom at home and interaction with the outside world. The open, if desperate, full-fledged weight and voice of the ruling system and the conservative establishment that was thrown behind Ahmadinejad’s campaign during the final weeks of the race, inclusive of the categorical endorsement of the Sepah-Baseej and the vast traditional religious networks and Friday congregational prayers, and most notably the openly discriminatory policy of the national TV, and hasty organizing of heavily-publicized visits to provincial centers and inauguration of half-completed projects, all failed to turn the tide in favour of Ahmadinejad.

On the eve of the elections, it was all but a foregone conclusion for the general public and the pro-reform camp that Mousavi was set to win with a comfortable margin, if not a landslide – similar to Khatami’s 1997 surprise victory. The worst-case scenario for the pro-reform camp was that Sepah-Baseej institutional vote rigging in the order of few millions would send Mousavi and Ahmadinejad to the run-off elections, to be held a week later. However, the picture for Ahmadinejad and the Sepah seems to have been quite grim and terribly unsettling, hence, requiring the execution of the main elements of the action plan. In retrospect, resort to such extreme security measures as cutting off of mobile services and rupture of text messaging on the eve of the vote – even if unjustified and baffling to the general public - make perfect sense once put in the bigger context of the extraordinary situation that was to unfold. As reported, once initial assessments of the vote had come in from different precincts and areas, around Friday noontime, the Thar-Allah Command had called the Interior Minister Mahsouli, himself a former Sepahi commander, for an emergency meeting, where they seem to have reached the conclusion that Mousavi was the frontrunner with a wide margin. While the Minister had been tasked to keep informed the Office of the Ayatollah as well as the Command of the actual situation on the ground, they proceeded with preparing the final execution of the action plan. As the picture became much clearer by mid-afternoon, the Command is reported to have informed the Office of the Ayatollah of the imperative of executing the main elements of the plan – thwarting the election outcome. Indications are that following some initial doubts and uncertainty on the part of the Ayatollah unsure at the moment of the plan’s success, the green light was received in the early evening hours – as communicated by Seyyed Mojtaba, his second son, who is widely believed to have crafted during the past several years a very close working liaison with the Sepah commanders and especially its intelligence wing and the Thar-Allah Command. It is popularly believed that Mojtaba, a very ambitious young cleric in mid-forties, has his father’s ear and has played an important role in coordinating the election coup between the Sepah Command and the Ayatollah.

Once the final green light from the Ayatollah had been received, the action plan went into full operation, beginning with the attack on Mousavi’s main election headquarters, to be followed a few hours later with the catalyzing action around the Interior Ministry. As of midnight, the rounding up of a large number of prominent pro-reform political activists got under way. As it has just been revealed in the case of a lawyer arrested then and released in late August, the arrest warrant, dated a couple of days before the vote, had been issued by the Office of the General Prosecutor – the infamous Judge Mortazavi, who has personally performed a unique role as the judicial long arm of the repressive apparatus since the reform period (1997 onwards). Further arrests of activists from a prepared list with already issued warrants (blank signed warrants in some cases) went on during Saturday while the result of the vote continued to be announced from the Election Headquarters – as briefly discussed earlier – and throughout the week.. The statement read on national radio and TV in the name of the Ayatollah on Saturday afternoon, confirming in very strong terms Ahmadinejad’s victory, was considered to be the last word on the episode and expected to practically force the cheated candidates, particularly Mousavi, into acquiescence and silence. The response to the announced outcome and the Ayatollah’s full endorsement, both on the part of Mousavi and Karroubi and the general public, as is now history, went against the putschist expectations in the other direction. They defied the announced outcome and its endorsement. Angry, bewildered protesters, brandishing green symbols and shouting “where is my vote,” started pouring out on the streets in various parts of the capital as soon as the final tally had been announced. Simultaneously thousands of armed police and Baseej units, hundreds of motorcyclists, along with large hordes of plainclothes vigilantes armed with clubs, chains, brass knuckles and in cases, revolvers, also took to the streets. This was the beginning of the shaping up of the Green Movement defying the election coup and the fraudulent victory of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and also the beginning of the worst repressive campaign by the state apparatus in the history of modern Iran .

While much is known about the big picture – election coup, popular defiance and resistance on the one hand and the still on-going repressive campaign on the other – little is known about the blueprint of the “emergency action plan” as prepared by the Thar-Allah Command in close cooperation with the Ayatollah’s Office. Similarly there is little hard evidence on the exact composition of the putschist gang. The available picture, spotty as it might appear, and put together from bits and pieces from various sources and also gleaned from post-election statements and remarks by Sepah and Baseej commanders and other intelligence and police officials, seem to point in the direction of the central role of the Sepah high command in guiding the execution of the coup. While the Intelligence Ministry has been on the sidelines of the operation, the parallel intelligence service, operated and guided from the Office of the Ayatollah, has played the paramount role. This service, established during the Khtamai days by cleric Hossein Taeb, former intelligence official and current commander of Baseej, is comprised of Sepah intelligence officers and agents. The regular police and the Baseej – inclusive of the totally unknown, shadowy plainclothes vigilantes – have acted as executing agents. Office of General Prosecutor Mortazavi has acted as the coordinator for the judicial aspects; issuance of arrest warrants and dispatch to detention centers, both under judicial supervision and otherwise (Sepah’s numerous secret detention centers, and such centers as Kahrizak under police management). The Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) – headed by the President - has acted as the coordinating mechanism. It has been reported that the meetings of the putschist gang in the post-election period have been held at the venue of the Council (SNSC), and presided by Ahmadinejad himself, with Saeed Jalili (Secretary of the Council/chief nuclear negotiator) acting as his personal liaison officer for the purpose.[1]

III – The Ayatollah and the military-intelligence community: mariage de convenance

As discussed previously, the objective of the election coup, planned and executed as a joint endeavour of the Office of the Ayatollah, parallel intelligence service and Sepah-Baseej combined capabilities, was directed at ensuring the victory of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the presidential elections which was expected to be carried by pro-reform candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi. The decision to thwart the election outcome in favour of Ahmadinejad, quite a risky decision fraught with unexpected colossal implications and consequences, cannot but be viewed and analyzed from the vantage point of major shifts in the balance of power in the Islamic Republic. What can be said, in a nutshell, revolves around the cumulative impact of the gradual increasing reliance of the Ayatollah on the military-intelligence community as opposed to interaction with the political forces within the system on the one hand, and on the other simultaneous gradual ascendance of Sepah as a rising military-intelligence force as well as a major political and economic player in the Iranian society. The roots of the peculiar liaison and cooperation are to be found in the very rationale of the Ayatollah’s meteoric rise to the position of the Velayat-e Faqih/Leadership in 1989 following the demise of Ayatollah Khomeini. Lacking requisite religious credentials as a junior cleric within the quite sprawling and highly complex hierarchy of the Iranian Ulama at the time, lacking charisma quite unlike Ayatollah Khomeini and the persistence of his towering persona and image, and equally important also lacking a solid political and organizational base within the ruling system, then brand new Ayatollah Khamenei appears to have felt obliged to seek political and institutional support from the military-intelligence community, and in particular, Sepah and Baseej. Within the broad framework of such a choice, the critical turning point for the further development and consolidation of the liaison offered itself following the sudden, unexpected landslide victory of Seyyed Mohammad Khatami in May 1997, trouncing Akbar Nateq-Noori, the conservative rival and the highly expected winner of the race. That sudden development and the emergence of the reform movement, first dominating the executive branch and over a year later, the majority block of the Majlis (6th Majlis), confronted the conservative establishment, inclusive of the Ayatollah himself, with a fundamental challenge.   Khatami, having campaigned on a platform of political reform, emphasized governmental accountability and transparency, the rule of law for both the rulers and the ruled, and respect for the rights and dignity of the individual. The reform movement, as it came to be called later, pursued in large measure a platform for political development – to expand and institutionalize the rule of law and respect for the constitutionally-recognized rights and entitlements.

Victory of the reform ticket was accompanied, as had been the case in similar previous episodes in modern Iranian history, with popular euphoria and outburst of popular energy in the form of political and social activism and cultural dynamism. Relaxation of some of the previous restrictive measures in the field of print press, in particular in the area of pre-publication censorship,   led to the emergence of a number of independent, critical newspapers and publication of a wide range of books in diverse fields. The new period of civil society blossoming, as in the previous experiences, proved short-lived, even during the first term of Khatami’s presidency. The conservative establishment, with a generally illiberal ideological outlook – even with a strong authoritarian streak – which had been caught by surprise in the immediate aftermath of the reform victory and rising challenge to its supremacy, regained its composure after a year or so and went on the offensive. Closure en masse of a wide range of independent and critical newspapers in the spring of 1999, following expression of open displeasure of the Ayatollah, came to be a turning point in the tussle between the reform ticket and the conservative establishment. Brutal suppression of the university student demonstrations against the closure of a major pro-reform daily in early July 2009, led to the establishment at the Office of the Ayatollah of a parallel intelligence service composed of Sepah and Baseej intelligence officers – as distinct from the traditional Intelligence Ministry, which is part of the cabinet and accountable, in the final analysis, to Majlis. The measure was also aided by the openly and extremely repressive anti-press practices of the Ayatollah’s personal protégé at the Judiciary - maverick young judge Saeed Mortazavi. These measures, kept in force and further institutionalized over time, especially the institutional strengthening of the new intelligence service and establishment of new military commands of the Sepah in Tehran in charge of defending the Office and institution of the Supreme Leader, lay the groundwork for future military-intelligence anti-reform operations.

These developments epitomized the beginning of the process of retreat by the reformers during the second half of Khatami’s first term (1999-2001), a situation that continued during his second term (2001-2005) and further weakened the reformers, popular political participation, and civil society activism. Emergence of the new radical right, which showed its head first in the course of the campaign for the elections of city councils in March 2003 – and as subsequent developments confirmed – was the well-calculated-executed institutional response of the beleaguered establishment and the rising military-intelligence community to the reform challenge. The capture of the Tehran City Council by an hitherto unknown political grouping – Abadgaran – with a militant and radical-sounding right-wing outlook and politics [radical right], also led to the emergence on the political scene of a little-known Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the Mayor of Tehran; the beginning of the political liaison between the new rising star and his institutional supporters in the Sepah. Recapture of the majority position in the 7th Majlis elections in February 2004, through the intervention of the Guardian Council and disqualification of prominent reform candidates, especially in Tehran and other major cities, made clear the establishment’s political thinking and planning – reclaiming the executive branch in the presidential elections of  June 2005 as the critical component of the drive towards consolidation of power and effective ousting of the reformers from the entire state apparatus.

The radical right, as represented by the maverick mayor of Tehran , Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, won the 2005 presidential race through the heavy and full force institutional intervention of the security and military apparatus – Sepah, Baseej - and also the entire religious network. The reform block, already in retreat and deeply fragmented, lost badly, which also signified a sense of widespread disillusionment and resignation among substantial segments of the urban middle class and intelligentsia. That resignation and practical boycott of the elections by a rather substantial segment of the visibly  disillusioned electorate was much more than offset by the effectively well-mobilized participation of the traditional constituencies of the conservative block, especially in the rural areas and small towns and also among the urban and rural poor who had been particularly energized by the radical, anti-establishment, and egalitarian slogans of Ahmadinejad. During the 2005-2009 period, the resurgent radical right, as spearheaded by a maverick, populist Ahmadinejad, systematically subjected all areas of civil and political activity to increasing pressures of sorts and curtailed and constrained them substantially – whether in the form of independent print press (newspapers and books), general NGO activities, women’s activities, university student activism, or political assembly by the wide range of pro-reform, pro-change groups and currents. Simultaneously, a range of economic and political-administrative policies and measures have helped to bring the Sepah in its entirety from the fringes to the center stage of economic and political life. Thanks to the extremely generous remunerative policies of Ahmadinejad, Sepah is now the biggest entrepreneur and contractor in the national economy, owns and controls a number of ports along the Persian Gulf littoral, and is engaged in a wide range of economic, industrial and commercial activities totally beyond the administrative and budget purview of the formal government.

This gradual, steady ascendance of the Sepah and the parallel intelligence service, outwardly fully and unflinchingly loyal to the Ayatollah and the existing theocratic state [anchored around the office and institution of Velayat-e Faqih], has also had the concurrent impact of making him more and more beholden to the military-intelligence community. Simultaneously, the politics of the resurgent radical right under Ahmadinejad has a matter of deliberate policy systematically pushed the wide gamut of pro-reform and pragmatist politicians and political forces out of the active political/administrative system and has further polarized the political environment. This seemingly inexorable trend has also constrained the available options to the Ayatollah and further limited the space for his political activity and interaction with his political seniors, peers and rivals from the earlier days of the Revolution. It could be said with a high degree of certainty that the Ayatollah, who has surrounded himself increasingly with a host of intelligence and security-minded elements, has capitalized on the trend, especially in light of his undisguised displeasure – even animosity – towards the messy, inconvenient early years of the reform period when he had faced the constant combined pressures of  substantial popular demands of a robust, dynamic civil society, a not-so-compliant Khatami and an independent, even unruly Majlis. It is understandable, therefore, that a beleaguered Supreme Leader in search of the assured tranquility of unquestioned supremacy and an ascendant military-intelligence community chafing to forcing itself on the system as its saviour/guardian find each other in a mutually expedient power arrangement of mariage de convenance.

In 2005, while the reform ticket was badly fragmented and the general public was in a state of political disillusionment and apathy, it was not too difficult to ensure the victory of a maverick, dark-horse populist as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It only required some vote rigging in the order of several hundred thousands to get him as the second vote-getter after Hashemi Rafsanjani and ahead of a “slightly” cheated Karroubi. The situation in 2009 for the re-election of the rabble-rousing “spoiled baby” might have been similarly easy if a credible, heavy-weight candidate like Khatami could be prevented from entering the race. Khatami, totally reluctant on his own to get into a re-play of an already painful experience, finally put up his candidature under the political-moral pressure of the reform camp and a rising popular movement of the youth to enter the race and save the country and the system from the depredations of an unscrupulous and incompetent political animal. He did, but as it is fully known to the political elite, the Ayatollah advised him in so many words not to do so. Once he chose to disregard – politely and quietly though – the unmistakable advice, Mr. Shariatmadari, former interrogator at the Evin Prison, and the personal representative of the Ayatollah at the head of the daily Keyhan – wrote in an editorial that should Khatami enter the race he would face the same destiny as Benazir Bhutto – will be assassinated – and the US will be blamed for the “crime”!

Khatami respectfully bowed out of the race before being assassinated by the US agents, and Mir-Hossein Mousavi, former premier in the 1980s, who had also indicated his willingness to run should Khatami not do so, put up his candidature on a pro-change platform. Given the fact that the 67-year-old architect-painter and Muslim intellectual of the 1970s had been out of active politics for 20 years and also because of his known posture as a proponent of predominantly statist economic policies while in office, the pro-reform camp approached him with some visible reservations initially, and gave him overall support, short of full endorsement. The apparent hesitation was also related to the fact that Mousavi’s expressed positions and analyses up to that juncture on social and cultural issues and such burning issues as human rights and democracy had not been fully developed or expressed – yet. The conservative block, judging the situation and cognizant of the complexities and fissures within the pro-reform, pro-change camp, did not seem particularly disturbed or uncomfortable with Mousavi’s candidature, assuming that his “old-guard” politics would fail to energize the generally apathetic populace, and also the efficacy of their own smearing tactics would easily knock him out. Things simply did not go quite that way as the campaign picked up during the last few weeks prior to the vote. As Mousavi adopted a gradual and yet increasingly progressive posture, he received the full-fledged support of the bulk of the pro-reform political parties and forces. His campaign, in all fairness, was also aided substantially by the presence and activism of his wife, Dr. Zahra Rahnavard, a well-known, progressive intellectual/academic and prolific writer. The fast developing campaign, which had adopted a light green symbol, soon turned out to energize the youth, women, subdued civil society, and the widest possible support from all walks of life, both at home and in the quite sizeable Iranian community abroad, including in particular from among the  disillusioned, apathetic and even apolitical segments of the populace who seem to have seen in him and the his campaign a promise for change and a life for the better under a somewhat reformed, less ideological and stringent, governance.

As discussed in the previous section, the aggressive, smearing campaign politics of Ahmadinejad, designed to outmaneuver Mousavi – his principal rival – failed to turn the tide, and the challenger appeared to be on the way to unseat him. That grim prospect, with the benefit of hindsight, seems to have forced the conservative establishment in general, a deeply uncomfortable Ayatollah, a doomed, desperate Ahmadinejad, and the restless military-intelligence community chafing to settle scores and further entrench its burgeoning position and prowess, to have found it imperative to go for the juggernaut and thwart the election outcome through an emergency plan – an election coup, as already addressed. The coup was pulled off with success and an incredulous, visibly demoralized Ahmadinejad was brought of the box and imposed on the country – and for that matter, on the international community. However, the coup-makers had not foreseen the sudden outburst of open, popular - and peaceful - defiance and resistance, both on the part of the general populace as well as the cheated candidates – Mousavi and Karroubi. The emergence and persistence of the unknown factor turned out to radically change the situation and the equation, and that is why and how the post-election explosion emerged and unfolded; a totally new dynamic with its peculiarly uncertain and unfathomable parameters.

IV- The Putsche programme: purge and consolidation
         
The conduct of the putschist gang since June 12th in stealing the vote, the subsequent violent campaign of repression, and the farcical show trials have brought to light – in fact, betrayed in the most revealing manner peculiar to an intrinsically violent mindset and military-style blind resolve - the real intentions and objectives behind the election coup. The immediate objective of the coup, as has already been discussed in some detail, has been to ensure the victory of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; thus requiring the deliberate, pre-planned thwarting of the rightful winner - Mir-Hossein Mousavi. In other words, the essence of the plan and its execution has been, first and foremost, to prevent, by any and all means possible and at any costs, the victory of the pro-reform candidate and return to power of the political forces and currents considered incongruent with the outlook, objectives, and policies of the current office-holders – the resurgent radical right and its military-intelligence backbone. But, what has transpired since the election coup has, in actuality, gone much beyond the mere blocking of a presidential challenger – even of Mousavi’s caliber as an ardent supporter of the existing Constitution. The process has  unfolded as a full-fledged, violent drive towards total consolidation of political power in the hands of a shadowy military-intelligence gang.  Some of the actions of Ahmadinejad in the wake of his official endorsement as the incoming president also shed further light on these intentions and objectives.

The mass arrests and detention of principal activists and leaders of major pro-reform political parties along with a large number of prominent civil society activists, journalists, lawyers and academics in the course of the election coup and in its wake, as is now quite clear, was not a mere tactical security measure. Rather, as it has turned out, it was part of the wider political-intelligence campaign to decapitate and paralyze these political formations in the first place, and prepare the grounds for further subsequent stages of the operation- effective, total purge of the political scene from pro-reform forces. Contrary to the general expectations – at least speculations - in many political circles and among the general public that the political detainees would be freed once the initial tense situation had passed, gradual leakage of news from prisons as to the solitary confinement, denial of legal access, and torture of prominent detainees for extraction of bogus confessions soon revealed some other aspects of the unfolding operation. Simultaneously, a high-profile propaganda campaign was initiated against the political detainees – and their respective political organizations – for complicity in a so-called Western-instigated conspiratorial “velvet revolution” aiming at the overthrow of the ruling system.

The propaganda campaign led in early August to the commencement of highly-publicized, televised show trials of around 100 people - a hodge-podge of well-known political detainees, young street demonstrators, a few staff of British and French Embassies in Tehran and also a French national. The Prosecutor’s indictment – an unmistakable political statement against pro-reform parties and activists and based on a long catalogue of bland accusations of a general , even journalistic, nature and totally void of any legal content – manifested, in the clearest possible manner, the depth of the ultimate intentions and objectives of the putschist gang – defamation of pro-reform parties and currents as a prelude to further legal/administrative measures towards officially banning their activities. The Interior Ministry has in the meantime sent out communications to the two major pro-reform political parties to the same effect and accused them of a number of “major violations.” It is interesting to note, as underlined by various political sources, that the bulk of the indictment was a reproduction in verbatim form of a series of columns published a few weeks earlier in the daily Keyhan – which has served for long as the semi-official mouthpiece of the shadowy intelligence community. Parading of a large number of political detainees in the court sessions in haggard conditions, in inappropriate apparel, and without access to legal counsel – in contravention of established juridical procedures – and simultaneous presentation of some detainees who had been forced into making public confession and reading from prepared statements, seemed to pursue a number of concurrent goals – including public humiliation and defaming of respected political activists and their respective organizations; demoralizing their supporters; as well as the immediate objective of rejecting election fraud from the mouth of prominent pro-reform activists.

Determined insistence by a host of supporters of the election coup – political, intelligence and Sepah officers - on the continued detention of political detainees and pursual of the show trials with emphasis on fighting the so-called “velvet revolution” despite expressions of public revulsion and open criticisms by an increasing number of independent political and religious figures and circles further manifested the bigger political will behind the campaign. The Ayatollah who had thrown his full weight behind the election coup and fully sided with Ahmadinejad during the first week after the vote kept a rather suspicious silence on the on-going developments. Continuation of detentions and the show trials even after the scandal of torture and systematic rape at the Kahrizak detention center had come to light and caused public consternation and furor and concurrent official embarrassment, made it all the more clear that the dual violent-defamation campaign was part and parcel of the bigger drive towards breaking the pro-reform camp and pushing it to the brink. Ahmadinejad’s actions in the midst of all these also pointed in the direction of some other aspects of the campaign. He summarily dismissed the Minister of Intelligence and took charge of the ministry, and within a few short days ordered the removal of a number of long-serving deputies, managers and experts and had them replaced them with loyal “new blood” from the Sepah intelligence wing – a measure that did not sit well with the intelligence group around the Ayatollah  who seem to have felt that the man is simply going too far in buttressing his personal position and undermining the position of the parallel intelligence service, and hence, ultimately the position and authority of the Ayatollah. Ahmadinejad  had already indicated in public pronouncements that once officially instituted he would proceed with smashing the heads of “undesirables” against the ceiling – a very blunt, ominous message for a large body of state employees within the quite expansive bureaucracy. Ahmadinejad’s excuse for dismissing the Intelligence Minister, as reported in the press then and also reiterated by him on a number of subsequent occasions, was his displeasure at the Minister’s report to the Ayatollah rejecting the veracity of the “velvet revolution” scheme; thus poking a hole in the ferocious on-going campaign and its rationale and political underpinnings.

More recent developments have, in fact, served as further indications of the drive towards consolidation of power in the hands of the putschist gang. It was announced just  a few days ago that Sepah will be purchasing 51 percent of the shares of Iran ’s Telecommunications Company. The deal, while indicating the economic reward for the Sepah’s success in the election coup and the consequent expanded politico-economic wherewithal, also reflects the extension of its actual control over the country’s telecommunications system – with grave long-term intelligence implications. Simultaneously, official formation of the incoming administration, as an important part of the political-administrative process formalizing the gelling of the putschist gang, lends further credence to the current drive. Composition of the new cabinet, which received vote of confidence from the Majlis just yesterday, leaves little doubt as to the nature and direction of the unfolding developments within the political system. Sepah has come much closer to practically dominate the political, economic and intelligence scene. No wonder, then, that quite a large number of the ministers are either Sepah officers or have had close liaison with it or with Baseej. For example, the Interior Ministry, the most political line ministry, has been handed to the former Defense Minister – a uniformed Sepah commander. The Higher Education Ministry has gone to the former deputy Interior Minister and head of the Election Headquarters – the man responsible for coordinating the election coup from the Headquarters. The fact that a man with such a high political-security profile will be in charge at the ministry dealing with the student body also implies the clear security-minded approach and policy to be pursued with regard to universities, especially in a period expected to experience widespread student activism and opposition in response to the election coup and the repressive campaign.  Ahmadinejad’s most provocative nominee was General Ahmad Vahidi for the post of Defense Minister. General Vahidi, former Commander of the Ghods Corps (Sepah’s international wing), is on the Interpol red alert for alleged complicity in terror activities in the 1990s. As it has been reported, his nomination and qualifications were not debated as in the case of others, indicating certain high-level interventions [from the Ayatollah or his Office] discouraging open debate in order to prevent any possible allusion to his personal difficulties as grounds for lacking requisite qualification to assume the post. And interestingly enough, in a highly-charged atmosphere peppered with xenophobic sloganeering at the Majlis, he received the highest vote among the 18 ministers confirmed.

Furthermore and concurrently two sets of pronouncements have shed further light on the picture ahead. Ahmadinejad has already indicated on a number of occasions, including while presenting his nominees for the cabinet to the Majlis a few days ago, the imperative of introducing substantial change in the staff and experts body of the Foreign Ministry. It has been reported in the press that while a large number of experienced diplomats will be retired or encouraged to seek early retirement, steps have already been taken to employ new recruits, with the bulk coming from the Sepah, including in particular from its associated academic institution, Imam Hossein University . The news piece carried just two days ago by the Fars News Agency, close to Sepah, reporting the expeditious recalling of 40 ambassadors from their current posts and the necessity of staffing the foreign missions with new blood with requisite “Islamic and revolutionary outlook” provides a clear indication of the coming purge and changes at the Ministry.  Also a string of openly political statements by a number of high-ranking Sepah commanders in recent weeks on a wide range of election-related issues have further unveiled their current and future intentions or political ambitions and objectives. While the head of the Sepah Political Bureau has called for the prosecution of Mousavi, the Commander-in-Chief, General Jafari, has addressed the question of “velvet revolution”. In a long public speech made to a group of young people, he has, among other things, produced a series of statements - “confessions” - from jailed pro-reform leaders and activists implicating them for direct complicity in the scheme. Various Sepah officers have also openly taken the credit for smashing the “velvet revolution” and underlined their commitment and full readiness to continue the current campaign.                 

V- Concluding remarks: the immediate future?

The discussion in the preceding lines of the post-election crisis in Iran has tried to show, in a clear albeit schematic form, the overall nature and direction of the developments that have taken place since the disputed June elections. The putschist gang has successfully thwarted the election outcome, imposed Ahmadinejad as the incoming president, and has pursued a violent campaign of repression against the popular resistance movement – the Green Movement – with particular focus on the pro-reform forces and currents. While the visible aspects of popular defiance seem to have been controlled for the most part and demonstrators have been effectively pushed off the streets, hundreds of pro-reform leaders and civil society activists still languish in jails with uncertain immediate destiny as to the duration of detention or the outcome of possible prosecution. Change in recent weeks of the head of the Judiciary might - just might – have some ameliorating, face-saving effects on the treatment of political detainees, especially that the infamous General Prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi has been removed from his powerful office with wide ranging executive powers – even though immediately appointed as deputy Prosecutor-General, a high-ranking position without executive authority. The still unfolding, unresolved drama on systematic rape of women and even men at the Kahrizak detention center – as pursued doggedly by Karroubi and vehemently resisted by those in power - might also serve as a constraining factor. The deeply embarrassed establishment might opt for some sort of face-saving, damage control quid pro quo in order to prevent actual confirmation of the crimes committed at the camp, or reducing its dimensions to the extent possible.



The still unfolding drama on the fate of political detainees, the show trials, and the Kahrizak scandal – three intrinsically complex and potentially explosive dossiers - seem to be the most burning issues impacting the immediate domestic political scene in the wake of the formation of the new cabinet. The big question mark, however, revolves  around the situation at universities at the beginning of the academic year in late  September. It can be said that all in all the domestic scene from now on will be  fraught with all kinds of uncertainties, which will be a subject of the respective approach and policies of both the government and the opposition – the Green Movement – and their interaction, if at all or however defined. The foreign picture will be similarly difficult and fraught with uncertainties - the most urgent issue being the nuclear dossier and the 5+1 high-profile focused pressure on the late September deadline for Iran ’s engagement in substantive negotiations or alternatively their oft-repeated threat to resort to harsher, biting sanctions.       

Given the quite vocal world unease with Ahmadinejad’ openly challenged presidency and the still continuing  international outcry at the repressive campaign, most probably he will have quite a tough time henceforth pursuing an effective, result-oriented foreign policy. Notwithstanding the  purported readiness on the part of Ahmadinejad and his team to engage in serious negotiations with the Obama Administration on the wide range of outstanding bilateral issues, inclusive of the nuclear dispute, his deeply challenged and much weaker position at home, and equally important the presumed recalcitrance of his Sepahi backers (the group with the most intractable and maximalist position on the nuclear issue), might make it extremely difficult for him under the circumstances to afford entering into serious meaningful negotiations on this matter, much less making compromising deals. His publicly announced upcoming visit to the United Nations General Assembly session aims at breaking out of the current international isolation, also hoping to be able to open some direct channels of communication with Washington. Whether the Obama people will be in a position under the current awkward circumstances to respond positively to such “desperate” vibes from an illegitimate president or not, one thing seems to be certain: he will receive a very warm welcome outside the UN building by throngs of Iranian and American protesters and quite probably a generally cold shoulder inside the building. Regardless of Ahmadinejad’s personal intentions, preferences, or hopes, and aside from political and diplomatic coquetry for public relations purposes, he might simply feel obliged to continue, at least for some time in the foreseeable future, his previous bombastic, aggressive, and confrontational foreign policy discourse for urgent, badly needed domestic consumption and also to placate further erosion in an already shaken, vulnerable political base at home.  Moreover, the Ayatollah and the intelligence group around him will not allow Ahmadinejad to take the credit for resolving the bilateral dispute with Washington . That happens to be the centerpiece of the Ayatollah’s rabid “anti-imperialism.” Therefore, vintage Iranian foot dragging – especially long monologues a la Jalili on a host of international issues and problems - might perhaps be the most probable course of action to be expected from Tehran on the nuclear issue during the months ahead.

[1] Some of the principal figures in the group, all high-ranking Sepah officers, are as follows:

- General Ahmad Vahidi, a Sepahi officer, former commander of Ghods Corps (Sepah’s international wing), is part of the Ayatollah’s security team and parallel intelligence service and now Ahmadinejad’s Minister of Defense. He is on the Interpol red alert for alleged complicity in terror operations in the 1990s.

- General Mohammad Hossein Hejazi, former commander of Baseej during the reform period and a principal anti-reform/anti-Khatami provocateur, is currently serving as acting deputy commander of Sepah and Commander of Thar-Allah, also one of the principal members of the parallel intelligence service and intelligence team at the Ayatollah’s Office.                              

- General Mohammad Esmaeil Kowsari, acting deputy commander of Thar-Allah, head of the intelligence department of the Chief Joint Staff of the Armed Forces, is also a Majlis deputy – and in that capacity serves as deputy of the Majlis Intelligence Commission. In one of his latest public remarks, he has called for the arrest and prosecution of Mousavi.
-  General Hossein Nejat, a Sepahi officer, a central member of the Ayatollah’s security team and parallel intelligence service.                                     

- General Hossein Hamadani, currently Taeb’s deputy at Baseej, is a member of the Ayatollah’s security team and parallel intelligence service, and also among the leaders of the shadowy Ansar-e Hezbollah plainclothes vigilantes.

- General Abdullah Araghi, commander of the Mohammad Rasul-llah Corps for the Greater Tehran.

Some other figures – clerics - who are known to have played a role in the plan, are as follows:



-   Hossein (Meisam) Taeb, a cleric, known for short temper and penchant for  violence, and current commander of Baseej, had been removed from the Intelligence Ministry once under Hashemi Rafsanjani in mid-1990s and for a second time under Khatami because of his complicity in the serial killings of intellectuals in 1998.  Subsequently he moved to the Office of the Ayatollah and established the parallel intelligence service.

- Mojtaba Zon-noor, a cleric, and current acting deputy to Saeedi at Sepah, has been known for proclivity to violence and organizing violent attacks on opposition figures.

- Ali Saeedi, a cleric, with extreme hard-line views, is the Ayatollah’s personal representative at Sepah.

-  Asghar Mir-Hejazi (Hejazi), a cleric, is in charge of the security affairs of the Ayatollah’s Office, is generally considered a very influential element in the entire security/intelligence establishment.


The above list is not exhaustive, and should be further updated and completed as  further data becomes available.