Of course, there is political calculation to Khamenei's investigation. It neutralizes the main demand around which the opposition is rallying on the streets and imposes a de facto 10-day cooling-off period that could sap, even demoralize, the anti-Ahamdinejad demonstrations. The huge rally in support of Mir-Hossein Mousavi in Tehran on Monday is enough to make any ruler, autocrat or not, tremble. All of this opens the Supreme Leader's window of vulnerability to one very powerful enemy. (See pictures from Iran's tumultuous election.)
As much as some Iranian conservatives may wish otherwise, the Islamic republic has never been able to seal tight state rule over society: it is a sloppy authoritarian state with elements of democracy. Iranian democracy may not be recognizably Western, but its dynamic seeps into the highest echelons of power, even if it is embodied in an instinct for consensus among a clerical élite with diverse opinions. It is a dynamic that even Khamenei has to answer to.
Apart from the Iranian electorate, Khamenei has a couple of very important constituencies to deal with. Indeed, while most people describe Khamenei as the unelected leader of Iran, he was chosen by a small but critical institution, the Assembly of Experts. He must also deal with the Guardian Council, which is equally small but also influential — and must certify the election results. Some pundits are now arguing that the Assembly of Experts could find constitutional means to remove Iran's Supreme Leader and that a refusal by the Guardian Council to validate the election could throw the country into further crisis.
The main impetus for this speculation is the influence in both groups of Ayatullah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the last surviving powerful member of the revolution's founding fathers. Rafsanjani was a very loud critic of Ahmadinejad, and thus indirectly of the President's patron, the Supreme Leader. Since 2007, Rafsanjani has been the chairman of the Assembly of Experts, which has the power to call for Khamenei's ouster. He is also the chairman of an important advisory body that has dealings with the Guardian Council. Throwing the investigation into the hands of the council may be an attempt by Khamenei to buy more time to build consensus about what to do next — and to restore the uneasy equilibrium between himself and Rafsanjani. (See pictures of Iranian society.)
Before the June 12 vote, Rafsanjani and Khamenei were involved in a public spat over Ahmadinejad, with Rafsanjani wanting the Supreme Leader to censure the President for what he described as slanderous remarks. Khamenei refused. Ahmadinejad's followers continue to see Rafsanjani (also a former President) as the enemy. At Ahmadinejad's celebratory rally on Sunday, almost all chants were directed against Rafsanjani. He is seen as the big threat; there is even speculation that Rafsanjani may see himself as the next Supreme Leader, which would be disastrous for the President.
Political scientists in Iran are skeptical that Rafsanjani would make a move to oust Khamenei. But there is intense internal maneuvering going on right now in the hallways of power, invisible to the massive demonstrations in the streets of Iran's big cities, which in turn feed the backroom dealings. For while it is still unlikely that Rafsanjani will make the unprecedented move to remove the Supreme Leader, the more chaotic Iran gets, the more it allows Rafsanjani to find some lever to pull or to do something dramatic. It is in Khamenei's interest, then, to cool down the demonstrations.
In 1979, everyone wanted the Shah to fall, but no one believed that it was thinkable. Then, suddenly, it became so. The 1979 Revolution, once in motion, took months to play out. Even to those within it, none knew what was exactly happening, how long it would take or whether there would be a successful conclusion. The same applies to the situation now.
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And central to this battle is Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, an immensely wealthy and deeply unpopular ex-president with a wide range of business interests and a criminal indictment for allegedly ordering a terrorist attack.
Mr Rafsanjani, a 75-year-old power broker who tells foreign visitors that he was the father of Iran's ballistic missile programme, is the unofficial leader of the faction opposing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader. He quietly provided much of the money and organisation behind Mir-Hossein Mousavi's campaign for the presidency.
In the other corner, the Ayatollah himself has consistently championed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and hailed the official result of last week's election as a "divine verdict".
"The elites are extremely divided," said Prof Ali Ansari, an Iran specialist at St Andrews University. "The hardliners are trying to reshape the Islamic Republic in their own image and this has created very serious divisions."
Mr Rafsanjani may oppose the hardliners, but that does not make him a reformer. Born in 1934 in Kerman province, he was part of the regime's inner circle from the moment that Shah Reza Pahlavi was toppled in the Revolution of 1979.
Mr Rafsanjani became Speaker of parliament and, almost exactly 20 years ago, he was instrumental in ensuring that Ayatollah Khamenei became Supreme Leader. This was no mean feat – the new Supreme Leader lacked religious scholarship, he was hastily promoted to become an Ayatollah, and his emergence as the symbol of the Islamic Republic surprised many observers.
Mr Rafsanjani's reward was to become president, a job he held until 1997. During this period, he concentrated on burnishing his own business interests and reviving Iran's economy after the shattering war with Iraq. This focus on domestic recovery, and self enrichment, earned him a reputation as a pragmatist(A practical, matter-of-fact way of approaching or assessing situations or of solving problems.), not an ideologue.
Mr Rafsanjani also proved to be entirely without scruples(An uneasy feeling arising from conscience or principle that tends to hinder action). In 1994, Iranian-backed terrorists bombed a Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires, killing 84 people. After an investigation, Argentina indicted Mr Rafsanjani, alleging responsibility, although Interpol decided the evidence did not support an arrest warrant.
After leaving office in 1997, Mr Rafsanjani became chairman of the Expediency Council, a body that mediates between the different arms of the regime. But he made powerful enemies.
Mr Ahmadinejad regarded his wealth with distaste and viewed him as a living betrayal of the austere principles of the revolution. In 2005, Mr Rafsanjani tried to return as president, only to be defeated in the election by Mr Ahmadinejad, who benefited from the Supreme Leader's open support.
This rift between Mr Rafsanjani and Ayatollah Khamenei therefore became the key division in the regime. Mr Rafsanjani strengthened his own position in 2007 by wining the chairmanship of the Assembly of Experts, an 86-member body charged with supervising and selecting the Supreme Leader.
In theory, this body also has the power to remove a Supreme Leader. The central question behind the present crisis is whether Mr Rafsanjani may now try to exercise this power.
His favoured candidate in last week's election, Mr Mousavi, has been robbed of victory and a politician he abhors(To regard with horror or loathing; detest: ) is still the president. During the campaign, Mr Ahmadinejad publicly accused Mr Rafsanjani of "corruption", prompting the older man to write a letter of protest to the Supreme Leader.
In the last few days, Mr Rafsanjani has been in the holy city of Qom, apparently visiting senior clerics. He could be trying to take his revenge by gathering the Assembly of Experts to remove Ayatollah Khamenei. If so, the struggle between these pillars of the Revolution is nearing its peak.
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Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri declared that "no sound mind" would accept the results. "A government that is based on intervening in (people's) votes has no political or religious legitimacy," said Montazeri, who had once been set to succeed Khomeini as supreme leader but was ousted because of criticisms of the revolution.
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Ali-Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the second most powerful man in Iran, is delivering the Friday Sermon in Tehran. Will it be the end of the protests, or a new challenge to the regime?
Ali-Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the second most powerful man in Iran (after the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei) and one of the principal figures behind the anti-Ahmadinejad movement that has rocked the country over the last month, will deliver the Friday Sermon in Tehran this week, the first time he has been offered the prestigious pulpit in years.
Even more surprising, sources in Iran have confirmed that both the main reformist challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi and former president Mohammad Khatami will also attend the sermon. In fact, Mousavi’s Web site is encouraging all of his supporters—that is, the hundreds of thousands of protesters who flooded the streets of Iran in the wake of the disputed presidential elections—to come along, too. Both Reuters and the Los Angeles Times report the rumors of Mousavi and Khatami attending.
What makes Rafsanjani’s invitation to deliver the Friday Sermon so unusual is that it could only have come from one man—Khamenei.
The presence in one place of the three main leaders of the protest movement (something that has not happened since the presidential elections) has fueled speculation about what exactly Rafsanjani plans to say. Could a compromise between the two camps be in the works? Or will this be the start of a new wave of challenges to the regime?
This will be Mousavi’s first public appearance in weeks; he has been under virtual house arrest since his refusal to accept the election results that returned Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the presidency. Why has the government suddenly allowed him to leave his home and attend the Friday Sermon? Could it be to force his capitulation to Ahmadinejad? Or is it the regime that’s capitulating?
The truth is no one knows what to expect from Rafsanjani on Friday. But the fact that the man known in Iran as “the Shark” has now become the reformist camp’s best hope for political change has left many in Iran scratching their heads. For years, no one was more emblematic of the hatred and anger that many Iranians, particularly the youth, feel toward the clerical establishment than Rafsanjani. Indeed, Rafsanjani is the clerical establishment. As one of the architects of the Islamic republic, he’s held almost every major post in the country. President from 1989-1997, he is now chairman of both the Expediency Council—meant to be a neutral body that arbitrates disputes between the parliament and the forces of the supreme leader—and the Assembly of Experts, which has the power to choose and to dismiss the supreme leader.
Rafsanjani is also staggeringly rich. A few years ago, when Forbes magazine published a special report on “Millionaire Mullahs,” it was Rafsanjani who made the cover. Since the revolution in 1979, Rafsanjani has managed to rise from his humble origins to build an empire worth more than $1 billion—this in a country in which the average adult income is less that $2,000 a month.
It is difficult to describe the fear and contempt with which a great many Iranians hold Rafsanjani. As the brainchild of the Iran-Contra scandal, Rafsanjani’s name is whispered at the head of every conspiracy. It is said he had a hand in the murder of Ayatollah Khomeini’s beloved son, Ahmad, so as to ensure his own promotion to the highest ranks of the revolutionary government. He has even been linked to a series of gruesome murders of dissident writers in 1998.
Of course, no one dares speak such things in public. When the intrepid Iranian journalist Akbar Ganji published an investigative piece about Rafsanjani’s role in the dissident murders, his newspaper was promptly shut down and its editors—Ganji included—were arrested. (Interestingly, Ganji never identified Rafsanjani by name, though everyone knew about whom he was writing—including, apparently, Rafsanjani.)
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