June 27, 2005 -- ZAMINLARZEH! The Per sian word for "earthquake" is on every mouth as Iran tries to absorb the shock of Friday's election.
The 49-year-old Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, who became mayor of Tehran less than two years ago, won the presidency in a landslide, crushing the mullah-cum-tycoon Al-Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani-Bahremani, one of the pillars of the regime since its inception in 1979.
Who is Ahmedinejad? Rafsanjani's allies described him as "a know-nothing" and "a street lout." He is neither.
With a PhD in engineering from Iran's most prestigious university, Ahmedinejad is far better educated than his five predecessors as president. He has held several senior government positions and served as governor in three provinces, including Tehran, being named "Governor of the Year" on all three occasions.
A reservist colonel of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Ahmedinejad is the first president of the Islamic Republic with a military background. He is also the first to come from a poor family (the son of a blacksmith), and one of few senior figures in the regime not to have amassed a personal fortune in recent years.
But his chief asset, and the main (if not sole) reason for his victory, is his relationship with and fierce loyalty to the "Supreme Guide" Ali Khamenei — the true, near-absolute, ruler of Iran. The two met in 1979 and have been close ever since.
Some dismiss Ahmedinejad's victory as irrelevant because the electoral process was manifestly flawed. Nevertheless, his election is an important development.
Ahmedinejad's rival was not only Iran's richest man but also the best-known figure of the Khomeinist regime. Rafsanjani was regarded as the man who engineered the emergence of Khamenei as "Supreme Guide" after Khomeini's death in 1989.
What ended the Khamenei-Rafsanjani tandem, 30 years of personal friendship and political partnership? Khamenei's friends say the "Supreme Guide" decided to humiliate his old ally because the latter had abused his various positions within the regime to build a business empire for his family. "After Khomeini's death, Khamenei went in pursuit of power while Rafsanjani went in pursuit of money," says a Tehran businessman who has known the two for decades. "Khamenei has remained an idealist while Rafsanjani became a cynic. The relationship could not have endured."
Khamenei, who has established himself as head of the most radical faction within the Khomeinist establishment, now controls all levers of power for the first time. Ahmedinejad's victory also signals Khamenei's decision to abandon any idea of western-style reforms. Confident that the divided middle classes are unable to forge a coherent opposition to the regime, Khamenei no longer feels any need for diversionary tactics such as when he arranged for Muhammad Khatami to win the presidency.
Khamanei has decided to mobilize the regime's real base — the Revolutionary Guard and its reservists; the so-called Baseej or "mobilization of the dispossessed" movement; the various organizations of families of "martyrs"; the occult Hezbollah (Party of God) networks, and, in broader terms, the masses of the poor.
Unable to provide the masses with the long-promised better material life, Khamenei, and Ahmedinejad under him, will try to sooth them with a crackdown on the "rich and corrupt Westernized classes." Inciting class hatred and using envy as a political weapon has long been a specialty of the Khomeinist movement.
Ahmedinejad's election shows that the Khomeinist regime cannot be reformed from within. It also shows that there still is a strong constituency in Iran for the populist message of the late ayatollah. Far fewer people actually voted than the regime claims — but there is no doubt that those who did vote preferred Ahmedinejad's "pure Islam" to Rafsanjani's attempt at perpetuating the myth that Iran today is a progressive democracy.
Ahmedinejad describes himself as a "fundamentalist" (usuli), has no qualms about asserting that there can be no democracy in Islam, rejects free-market economics and insists on "religious duties" rather than human rights. This clarity will, in the medium term, help the people of Iran understand the choices involved. They will learn that they can't have an Islamist system together with the goodies that the modern world offers in both material and spiritual terms.
"We do not want Friday-night Muslims," Ahmedinejad says. "We want round-the-clock, seven-days-and-nights-a-week Muslims."
Unlike Khatami, who was trying to hoodwink the Europeans over the Iranian nuclear project, Ahmedinejad openly says Iran has such a program, is proud of it, and that no one has the right to question Iran's right to develop whatever weapons it wants.
Should the outside world be frightened?
Not necessarily. Paradoxically, the clarity created by this election may prove useful. Khatami went around the world speaking about Hegel and Nietzsche to ruling elites, creating the illusion that the Islamic Republic was part of the global system symbolized by the World Trade Organization, the Davos forum and the Western nongovernmental organizations of do-gooders. Ahmedinejad's victory reveals the true face of the Islamic Republic as a major regional power with its own world vision that challenges the so-called "global consensus." It reminds the world that the mini-Cold War that started between the Islamic Republic and the West, notably the United States, is far from over.
Iranian author Amir Taheri was the editor-in-chief of Kayhan, the most important Iranian daily, under the shah. He is a member of Benador Associates.
