The Present and Future of Iranian Politics
The Present and Future of Iranian Politics
Vali Nasr
Professor
Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy
An Interview with Harvey Stephenson and Yashua Bhatti
Medfield, MA, 23 April 2008
Vali Nasr is a professor at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and
an Adjunct Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.
He has also been a faculty member at the Naval Postgraduate School, Stanford University,
and Harvard University, among others. He was a senior fellow at the John F. Kennedy School
of Government and a Carnegie Scholar. Additionally, he has authored numerous books and
articles, including The Shia Revival: How Conflicts within Islam Will Shape the Future
and Democracy in Iran: History and the Quest for Liberty.
Brown Journal of World Affairs: For a brief background of what politics is like in
Iran, can you tell us who actually controls the state and, in particular, foreign policy?
Is it President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei?
Vali Nasr: Well, Iran has a very particular political system that does not fit into the
category that we are familiar with in the Middle East. It is not ruled by one person
like a typical dictatorship. At the helm of the state is a leader who is unelected and not
accountable, but most executive offices are held by those who win elections that are
limited in terms of openness. It is a theocracy at one level, but it has a lot of electoral
democratic practices on a local scale—not necessarily at a national level. Even at the
municipal level—for instance, in small towns—there are many elected officials with
budgetary control over municipalities and mayoralties. It is also notable that Iran’s
president is not the head of the Iranian state. The person who ultimately holds most
of the power according to the constitution is the supreme leader, who has been the
ruler of Iran since the death of Khomeini in 1989. He sits above the entire political
system—above the judicial, legislative, and executive branches. He has power over a
majority of the foundations that control the wealth of the country. In addition, he has
control over numerous extra-constitutional councils that have veto power over the legCopyright © 2008 by the Brown Journal of World Affairs
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islature and the activities of the government. The Iranian president is strictly the head
of the executive branch of the government. He does not appoint the commanders of
the military in Iran; the supreme leader does. Unlike presidents of other countries, the
Iranian president does not have direct powers over the legislature, the Iranian judiciary,
and the many foundations that report directly to the supreme leader. In other words,
the Iranian president is powerful within the executive dimension of the government
but subservient to the supreme leader. From a conventional standpoint, the Iranian
political system is very confusing. That is part of what makes Iran very different from
other countries, where the chain of command is very clear.
Journal: What are the underlying factors holding the Iranian political system together?
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Nasr: The factors that contribute to the cohesion of the Iranian political system are
both common to other political systems and unique. For instance, similar to many
other third world countries, the state has a very large footprint on society. The Iranian
public sector controls over 80 percent of the Iranian economy. Most Iranians either
work for the government or rely on the government for entitlement programs. A
defining characteristic of the state is that it intrudes into all aspects of an individual’s
life—it has certain control over the press and promulgates cultural and religious policies to which the population is required to adhere to. Like many other third world
and Middle Eastern countries, it has a very elaborate system of intimidation, using the
courts, thugs, vigilantes, secret police, and regular police. It has control over most of
the dissemination of information, including radio and television. It has the power to
disrupt newspapers, Internet, and other media sources it does not find favorable. In
this sense, it is not very unique in behaving like an authoritarian government.
The Iranian political system differs in that it is a government not associated with
a single person. Unlike the shah’s government, Mubarak’s Egypt, or Qaddafi’s Libya,
it is not one person who rules the country. Instead, rule is shared by multiple centers
of power that may have shared interests in the general survival of the regime but have
different political interests. For instance, some of these nodes of power may support
private sector activity while some of them may not. Some of them are religious hardliners while some are more pragmatic. In this respect, you essentially have a decentralized
authoritarian regime. The current supreme leader is reliant on these multiple centers
and tries to govern by consensus building. The Iranian system is like a whole flotilla of
ships that rides near a single large ship, generally moving in the same direction, albeit
very slowly without any radical shifts.
Journal: So the supreme leader is not in reality “supreme” since his power is constrained
by the complex political system?
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The Present and Future of Iranian Politics
Nasr: He is supreme in the sense that most of the levers of power rest with him and
that he is nominally the head of the country. Yet, in any system, however individualistic it is, there are limitations on decision-making by the head of the state based on
what interest groups try to lobby for and the sources of resistance he encounters. The
case in Iran is that those sources of resistance are numerous and diverse, able to exert
contradictory pressures. In other words, the supreme leader can be under pressure
through lobbying from the Iranian bureaucracy, which is directly controlled by the
Iranian president. In addition to his constituency within the Revolutionary Guard, the
supreme leader has another constituency altogether, consisting of the Iranian clerics,
who have representatives down to the smallest village in Iran. During times when these
groups push in different directions, part of the role of the supreme leader is to balance
these opposing forces. Because he was not necessarily a very prominent cleric, merely
acquiring the position of supreme leader did not give him sufficient authority to move
the system in an aggressive way. Therefore, he has to rely much more on consensusbuilding and coalition formation to move forward. In some ways, the supreme leader
makes political movements similar in manner to the Pope. The Vatican, for instance,
never makes radical political shifts. Instead, it is a very slow moving process as different churches are required to deliberate on the intended movement. Technically, the
supreme leader in that sense has his own view with respect to politics but exercises it
within the broader context of the byzantine labyrinth of the Iranian political system.
Journal: What is Khamenei’s vision for the future of Iran? Does he want to move
towards or away from democratic reform? Does he want to pursue modernization or
is he satisfied with the state as it is now?
Nasr: The top priority for the Iranian regime and the one the supreme leader represents
is regime survival, which entails the protection from both external and internal threats.
Indeed, the extent to which the regime embraces reform depends on how much change
the regime believes the country can handle. Looking at the pattern in Iran, it progressed
in comparison to neighboring regimes by leaning in the direction of reform in the late
1990s. The Iranian president at the time had a reformist outlook. What followed was a
kind of Putinization, which means a rollback in the sense of reducing the momentum
for reform, changing it within certain bounds, and preserving the electoral process. For
instance, the reformists will win 30 seats in the parliament, but no more than that. The
delays are not about how quickly you can change the system, but what you need to do
in order to stabilize it. Along the way, however, some change becomes necessary for the
sake of regime survival, like economic change. But the mantra of many governments
around the world, including Iran’s, when it comes to regime survival is the pursuit of
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change not simply for change’s sake. They pursue only those changes that they believe
are necessary. The Iranian regime has to address current problems such as unemployment, inflation, and stagnant economic growth, even though oil is fetching high prices
in world markets. Given these problems, it does have to accept certain changes, but
they will be accepted modestly and only insofar as they address regime survival issues.
In that sense, Iran is similar to Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and others who are also
reluctant to embrace democratization just for democratization’s sake but are more
concerned with the maintenance of regime stability and viability.
Journal: In keeping with the theme of regime survival, what role do nuclear weapons
play in Iranian politics?
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Nasr: Iran has not claimed that it wants nuclear weapons so much as nuclear technology. Iran claims that it has secured for itself a certain power and prestige that comes
with becoming a member of the nuclear club, and that it has done so despite sanctions
and outside pressure, which has the quality of focusing a lot of current Iranian public
debate on nationalistic, rally-to-the-flag issues rather than bread-and-butter issues
where the government is most vulnerable. In addition, whether it actually converts
its nuclear resources to weapons or achieves a status where it is within reach of possessing nuclear weapons, this capability can guarantee regime survival against outside
aggression—particularly in an environment in which regime change in Iran has been
the target of U.S. foreign policy for a while. Having nuclear capability will give Iran
the ability to feel secure against outside physical threats and will also serve to increase
nationalism among the general public.
Journal: You have mentioned that very few reformists were elected to the Iranian parliament. Is that because Iranians do not generally support reform in Iran or is it because
the government is stifling this sort of development?
Nasr: This issue has multiple dimensions. The first and foremost is that reformists are
not really allowed to run for office. The Guardian Council, which sits above the parliament, determines whether individuals who register to run can participate and has the
right to vet candidates. A lot of reformists were actually disqualified even though they
won virtually every seat that they contested. They were much more popular in urban
centers, particularly in Tehran, than they were in small or rural towns.
Secondly, the reformists are not the only proponents of modernization in Iran. In
fact, a group of pragmatic conservatives, who are associated with the mayor of Tehran,
advocate a mix of China and Putin models—a combination of economic modernization
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The Present and Future of Iranian Politics
with authoritarianism—and have effectively eaten into segments of reformist vote. The
reformists stand for cultural, social, religious, and political reform. Some conservatives
say that the priority in Iran should be economic modernization with better governments, better management, and better business practices. They have a certain appeal
to some segments of voters to which the reformists used to appeal, leaving reformists
unable to protect their vote bank.
Thirdly, the reformists are disorganized, since they do not have a formal party.
What organization they have is rife with internal bickering. In the last presidential election, Karubi, a famous reformist leader, came in third right behind Ahmadinejad and
believed he should have been number two. This belief has turned him into a claimant
to the leadership of the reformers, which he asserts by constantly sniping at the former
reformist president Khatami, who is sniping back. In reformist newspapers, most of
the attention focuses on the quarrelling between these two—somewhat similar to the
Democratic primary in the United States. Thus, the disorganization of the reformists
is compounded by the fact that they do not have a political party that can unify voters.
The conservatives, in contrast, were better organized in 2005 and still are, which helps
to elevate them above the reformists.
The fourth issue is that the reformists never really had an agenda for economic
reform. Instead, they mainly focused on talking about political liberty. This in turn
benefited Ahmadinejad who came up with the idea, “I’m going to put the oil money
on everybody’s table.” To this day, the reformists are more about political reform than
economic reform, which has only led to their demise. That said, in an open election,
the reformists would definitely be a lot more powerful than the number of seats they
won in the last parliamentary election.
Journal: Does that mean there is a very little prospect for the formation of a strong
internal movement towards democratization?
Nasr: We do not know for sure, but what we do know is that democratization in Iran
is not going to happen as rapidly as in Ukraine. In fact, this is true for all countries
in the Middle East. We really do not see democratic waves anywhere because we have
stable authoritarian regimes. Things may happen, however, due to food shortages in
Pakistan or Egypt, which may in turn rattle regimes in unexpected ways. If the oil prices
were suddenly to crash, the calculus in Tehran about how much change they can afford
would be reevaluated. Through the manipulation of the economy, media, constitution,
and intimidation practices, Iran has found that it has limited participation within the
system without being threatened by it. How do we unhinge a system that is stuck? How
do we break loose and move forward? A probable solution seems likely to come from
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the economic arena. However, in oil rich countries, it is not very clear how that will
exactly happen. There is also one added advantage to the Iranian system: if the Iranian
president is blamed for bad economic performance, he is replaceable without damaging
the system. For instance, if Iranian voters were to get very angry at high inflation rates
and the government’s economic policies, they could vote President Ahmadinejad out
of office. This advantage differentiates it from Egypt and Jordan where the head of the
country is always threatened by popular discontent.
Journal: So the supreme leader is not as vulnerable as the president?
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Nasr: Unless the system as a whole is rattled, he is not vulnerable. Also, the rotation
of Iranian leaders helps create a certain political momentum that reduces the pressure
against the supreme leader. This is in contrast to Egypt where you have not had a change
of the country’s leader in 30 years. On a different note, Iran is the only country in the
Middle East that has had the former head of state living in his own country and stepping down at the end of the constitutional term. This has left Iran with two former
presidents: Rafsanjani and Khatami. This may seem meaningless, but for a segment
of a population, the fact that they could vote out Rafsanjani––the fact that a former
Iranian president can stand for elections and get humiliated at the ballot box as he did
in 2005––provides a certain degree of legitimacy which gives the regime a lot more
breathing room. It is conceivable, however, that the pressure could build to a point where
it will be a systemic challenge, but I don’t see that happening anytime soon, as most of
the attention is focused on high oil prices and the conflict with the United States. The
Iranian government does not see itself threatened by a sudden popular uprising, which
is indicative that it is not under systemic threat. Nonetheless, Ahmedinejad may well
stumble and be held responsible for high inflation and bad economic practices.
Journal: With respect to the supreme leader, earlier you mentioned that he is elected
by the Assembly of Experts. To what degree is the supreme leader vulnerable to the
demands of this body of clerics?
Nasr: The supreme leader is not vulnerable because of the manner in which he is elevated
to that post—similar to the election of the Pope. During the election, the Council of
Experts, which consists of 80 or so elected clerics, exercises enormous power. Periodically, the council meets to evaluate the supreme leader, but beyond that, the supreme
leader is not responsible to the parliament, the judiciary, or the executive branch as he
technically sits above most of the state. The constitution gives him his powers but the
constitution has no power over him. Since he does not oversee day-to-day policy, he
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is not even held, to a large extent, accountable for specific policies of the government.
For instance, if the budget does not suffice, Ahmedinejad is held responsible. If the
trains do not run on time, it is Ahmedinejad’s fault. If the people are not getting their
electricity, it is Ahmedinejad’s fault, and so on––it is not the responsibility of the supreme leader. Indeed, the Council of Experts is only important at the time of selection
of the next supreme leader and thus does not limit the power of the current supreme
leader effectively. Recently, a rumor has been circulating that the current supreme leader
is not in good health. Although this has created a lot of activity within the Council
of Experts, it is not going to translate into action unless you have an opening for the
selection of another supreme leader.
Journal: How much does religious ideology guide the supreme leader in making
foreign policy?
Nasr: Without a doubt, religious ideology does play an important role in the foreign
policy of Iran. The supreme leader views himself as the last representative, manifestation, embodiment, and the ultimate defender of the Islamic republic and the Iranian
revolution. Most importantly, he is the one who has to protect the system, which,
at its core, is based on revolutionary values that came out of Khomeini’s works and
formed the ideology of the Iranian revolution. This leaves room for pragmatic issues
of his choosing. For example, in 2004, for the first time after 27 years, he said that
Iran could talk to the United States about Iraq. On 30 January of this year, he alluded
to the possibility of having talks with the United States only at a time of his choosing. Therefore, he basically shifted his position on the issue of talks with the United
States—it is not that we will never have relations with the United States because of
ideological reasons, but that it is just not in our national interest to do it now. It was
a pragmatic declaration.
Some of his ideology is not even Islamic—some of it is leftist. Some of his ideas
about anti-imperialism––war against the West—are ideas that Hugo Chavez and many
third world leaders have had. The notion that the supreme leader has about self-reliance,
which he shares with the current Iranian president, is not necessarily an Islamic value. It
is rooted in the leftist ideologies of the 1960s. When the supreme leader was president
in the 1980s, he traveled to the United Nations a few times, and he also went to some
third world countries. Since he became supreme leader, however, he has not traveled
outside Iran. For the past 20 years, he has not met many world leaders except those
who traveled to Iran. He has not witnessed first hand events in Saudi Arabia, Dubai,
Egypt, and Europe. Thus, it is more than likely that the worldview that has influenced
the current supreme leader along with his generation was acquired in the 1960s and
1970s during the Iranian revolution.
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Journal: It seems the relationship of religion and politics is very defining of Iran. To
what extent is there compromise and tension between these two forces?
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Nasr: There is a lot of compromise and tension, and this is true of every ideological
state. China, Russia, and Vietnam had to deal with this relationship. In other words,
the ideology is at the core of the system. There are those within the system that are more
pragmatic about ideology, like Khatami, who wanted to temper it, and then there are
those who are highly resistant to it. Iran in some ways is peculiar compared to many
other revolutionary regimes in that the first and second generations of the revolution
are bound together, while power is in the hands of the first generation. The youngest
of Iran’s elite leaders, such as Ahmadinejad, are the commanders of the Revolutionary
Guard. Back in the 1980s, these were the young revolutionaries fighting the Iraq–Iran
war. The events of the revolution significantly influenced and affected them in their
youth and thus matter a lot to them.
Given the influence and effects of the revolutionary ideology on the current group
in power, there are different schools of interpreting the ideology. There are times when
the regime has shown a certain degree of pragmatism; talking to the United States
about Afghanistan is a prime example. There are other times when it behaved extremely
ideologically, supporting fanatical movements in the Arab world or imposing hard line
social restrictions at home. This can be seen as a kind of schizophrenia or an internal
battle within the regime among its leading ranks.
The religious element is very much there and can be seen differently from the
ideology. For instance, there are large numbers of Iranians who are extremely pious with
respect to religious practices, but none of them looks up to the Iranian supreme leader
as a genuine source for following religious doctrine. Being religious does not mean
that you support the regime or have a blind revolutionary adherence to its practices.
The picture is much more complex than that. But looking at this question about the
supreme leader sheds light on the dilemma of how to change the office of the supreme
leader, given that all of its power and definition come from the ideology of the revolution. How can the office of the supreme leader change without destroying itself?
Journal: In your recent book, The Shia Revival, you discuss the idea of a rising Shiite
movement across the Middle East and internationally. How much does the Iranian
regime want to play a leading role in that movement?
Nasr: Not a very direct role. The Iranian regime benefits from insurgent Shiite politics,
Shiite public piety, and Shiite identity. This is very evident from Saudi Arabia to Kuwait,
from Iraq to Lebanon. The Shiite movement in Iraq has the effect of not only clarifying
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that there is a Shiite-Sunni conflict, which the United States did not take note of before
the Iraq war, but also highlighting that there is a Shiite Arab state that possesses symbolic
meaning. And so we are seeing a rise of Shiite identity in many countries even though
it is not reflected in their politics. Iran benefits from this identity because many Shiites
look to Iran almost like a holy country, like a patron. The more powerful, vociferous,
and influential Shiites become, the more Iran benefits. However, the Iranians do not
want to own the Shiite identity but want to leverage it to influence regional politics and
become a great regional power. They want the Middle East to embrace their leadership
without resistance, which requires them to view Iran as a Muslim country instead of
a strictly Shiite country. At the same time, Iran does not want to be seen by outsiders
to the region as simply Shiite and Iranian. Therefore, the Iranian objective is to gloss
over what separates them from the Arab world, which they think can be achieved
through putting more focus on Arab-Israeli issue. The Palestinian issue is a secular
Islamic issue that allows the Iranians to show that they are one with the Arabs. At the
same time, they are also able to show the Middle East that they are contributing great
efforts to the Arab-Israeli issue, more so than other Arab governments. These efforts
intend to legitimize Iran as a leader in the Middle East and, in turn, put pressure on
other Middle Eastern countries to accept Iranian leadership. Without a doubt, Iran has
benefited from what happened in Iraq. At the same time, it is important to notice the
pragmatic approach Iran has taken toward the benefits accrued from the Shiite revival.
Iran behaves in a manner that avoids drawing attention to the Shiite revival so as not
to mobilize resistance to the rise of Iranian power in the region. It benefits from this
revival but does not want to bring attention to it or be defined by it.
Journal: Does Iran see itself as the leader or potential leader for the entire Middle East
as a region?
Nasr: Not exactly—Iran sees itself as a great power in the region. Its ambitions are
that of a great power, so it would be more fitting to view Iran as the way India sees
itself in South Asia, Russia sees itself in the Caucasus or Central Asia, Brazil sees itself
in Latin America, or China sees itself in Asia. It does not want to invade other people,
but it instead wants to be recognized in the international community and among its
neighbors as a force to be reckoned with. Iran is on a power-surge, since Iranians believe
they have a say in Iraq and Afghanistan, in Palestinian issues, and in Lebanon. They
want the United States to leave the region so that they can dominate the Gulf. This
outlook is a function of national ambition, which actually goes back to the Pahlavi
period, to the shah’s period. It is also a matter of opportunity, since the wars in Iraq
and the Afghanistan removed the two brackets constraining Iran—the Taliban and the
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Saddam regime. With them gone, Iran has found a lot more elbowroom to spread its
influence. More significant is the destruction of the Iraqi army since it removed the one
local military force in the Persian Gulf area that could contain Iran. So, since 2003,
the Iranian ambition of being the undisputed power in the Gulf has been allowed to
take hold. It wants the others to recognize this and the United States to get out of the
way so it can achieve this goal.
Journal: Do you have any comments about Iran with respect to the recent U.S. elections?
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Nasr: Well, the standoff with the United States is extremely divisive for Iran both regionally and internally—the possibility of war is a threat to Iran’s stability. Beyond that,
Iran has gone through rapid change because of high oil prices. The gains from oil have
changed the way Iran calculates its sense of external power as well as its internal stability. Any decisive changes, however, depends on two elections: the U.S. election—and
the direction the United States will subsequently take vis-à-vis Iran—and the Iranian
election, scheduled to take place in June 2009. The latter will decide whether Iran will
adopt a new face as its president, which could indicate at least marginally different
policies than the current one. Ultimately, how the United States and Iran will act will
depend on how the other one acts: for the United States, a lot in the Middle East now
depends on what happens with Iran and for Iran a lot depends on what happens in the
United States. But right now they are in a deadlock, which leaves the opportunity for
change after June 2009. This change will depend on whether one or both would adopt
a drastic new policy that would move this discussion in a new direction. W
A
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