Iran: A Coup In Three Steps
Iran: A Coup In Three Steps
Abbas Milani – 15-062009
The U.S. must side with Iran’s people.
At the same time, Ayatollah Khomeini was forced to heed the overwhelmingly democratic aspirations of the people at the time by allowing for a presidency that was to be directly elected by the people. The constitution thus became–and remains–an incongruent mix of despotism and democracy.
In 1997, Ayatollah Khomeini’s successor, Ayatollah Khamenei had yet another surprise. In spite of the vetting process, a reformist named Mohammad Khatami was elected president in a landslide. For the next eight years, Khamenei was involved in a war of attrition to neuter any attempt by the new president and his reformist allies in the parliament to introduce elements of democracy in the country. Khamenei used a combination of judicial and paralegal tools and tricks to abort all efforts to afford the people more freedom and less censorship.
In 2005, Khamenei, afraid of a repeat of the Khatami ordeal, used his considerable power to ensure that none of the reformist candidates were elected. Instead, he opted to support the candidacy of a hitherto marginal figure named Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But from his days in college, Ahmadinejad had established close ties with young Islamists who would later become leaders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC), and of its shady Qods Brigade. In his populist campaign for presidency, Ahmadinejad promised to fight corruption and improve the economic lot of the people. Double-digit unemployment and inflation had by then taken their toll on the people. The failure of the reformists to deliver on their political or economic promises prepared the ground for Ahmadinejad’s victory.
Once in power, Ahmadinejad surprised everyone, including Khamenei by the strength of his tightly knit network of Iranian Revolutionary Corps of Guards (IRCG) commanders, and leaders of Basij–gangs cum militia that have units in every neighborhood and office around the country. Ahmadinejad’s willingness to use these hard-line ideologues to replace well-trained managers and technocrats resulted in a massive purge of the bureaucracy. Many of these replaced mangers joined the ranks of the government’s critics, if not opponents.
More importantly, in spite of record oil revenues (more than $200 billion in Ahmadinejad’s tenure) Ahmadinejad not only failed to solve any of the economic problems or fight corruption but made them both worse. In fact, some of his closest allies–like Minister of the Interior Sadeq Mahsuli, who was a founder of the Qods Brigade–were themselves notoriously corrupt.
As the 2009 presidential election neared, Ahmadinejad seemed more and more vulnerable and the reformist candidate, Mir Hossein Mousavi gained unexpected momentum. Green became his color and suddenly major cities were covered in a sea of green. A large and powerful coalition of forces, ranging from Ayatollahs Montazeri and Rafsanjani to moderate secular forces, members of the middle class, women’s group, trade unions, student organizations, technocrats and leaders ofIran’s badly beleaguered private sector was formed around the issue of ridding the country of Ahmadinejad. The fact that for several months before the election Khamenei had clearly sided with Ahmadinejad made a vote against the incumbent president a "no" against the status quo. In reality, the election became a referendum about Khamenei and his allies.
As early as Monday June 8, the IRGC, in its official political organ called Sobhe Sadeq, warned of what it called a "Velvet Green revolution" in Iran and declared, menacingly, that they will nip in the bud this movement and will never allow it to seize power. By Friday, no sooner had the polls closed had Ahmadinejad and his co-conspirators put caution to the wind, and preemptively declared him the winner. They were clumsy in their announcements. Each candidate’s share of the total vote remained more or less the same throughout the night–statistically impossible considering the differences in support amongst different segments and strata of society. Moreover, in anticipation of public uproar, the coup masterminds announced a large "security exercise" where they took over Tehran in a massive show of force.
Even before the end of the vote count, the general contour of the coup was evident, and Khamenei’s role was particularly telling. Instead of remaining above the fray and meeting the winner about three days after the results are officially announced, he hurriedly issued a statement supporting the election result and asked all other parties to join the celebration. He was clearly one of the masterminds of the coup. Now, his fate is inexorably tied to that of Ahmadinejad. Moreover it is not clear to what extent he can continue to count on the obedience of the IRGC or even whether he has become their subservient tool.
What the coup masterminds miscalculated were the resolve of the people and of Mousavi and Mehdi Karubi to resist the brazen electoral coup. Ever since the announcement, there have been ceaseless peaceful demonstrations. Mousavi has asked his followers–by several accounts more than 22 million votes were cast for him–to continue their peaceful demonstrations and to refuse to accept what he calls the baseless claims of victory by Ahmadinejad. He has also written an official letter of protest to the Guardian Council, asking it to declare the election null and void and order new elections. In spite of the government attempt to shut down phone and instant messaging services, and in spite of the arrest of more than 150 activists–and finally, in spite of the brutality of the regime’s forces in restoring order–peaceful resistance has continued.