March 10, 2015
In their controversial letter to “the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton and 46 other Republican senators suggested that even if Washington comes to a nuclear deal with President Obama, the next American president could decide to reject it, presumably if he (or she) were more of a hard-liner than Obama is.
But the next ayatollah who becomes supreme leader of Iran could do exactly the same thing—and many signs are that he is going to be more of a hard-liner. Ironically, opponents of a nuclear
deal in Washington could well be contributing to this outcome by
creating an atmosphere of mistrust in Tehran that only consolidates the
power of the conservatives there.
Moreover, whoever the next supreme leader of Iran is,
there’s every chance we could be meeting him sooner rather than later.
In recent weeks fresh reports have surfaced about the
deteriorating health of the current occupant of that office, Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei, raising questions about Iran’s future at a critical moment
in the nuclear negotiations with the West. True, it is difficult, if
not impossible, to separate fact from rumor. Even though Tehran, in an
unprecedented decision, recently publicized Khamenei’s “prostate removal
operations,” the government considers the facts of his illness to be a
matter of national security; both the Shah and Khamenei’s predecessor,
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, were extremely ill during their rule, yet
knowledge of their true health was limited to a handful of people and
family members. And some Iranian politicians have a vested interest in
spreading stories about —or at least exaggerating—Khamenei’s declining
health for their own political purposes as they look to sway the views
of the Assembly of Experts, the council of more than 80 members that is
charged by the constitution with the succession issue.
Nevertheless, when it does come, Khamenei’s death will transform the Islamic Republic as fundamentally as the death of Ayatollah Khomeini and the ascendance of Khamenei himself did in 1989.
And if current indications are
any guide, when that happens Iran could become even tougher to deal with
than it already is. Even the current standoff over Iran’s nuclear
program could affect the final decision about succession, since the
outspokenness of hardliners in the U.S. Senate, and Cotton’s reportedly
unprecedented action, will likely only stiffen the views of the
hardliners in Tehran.
In any case, the next supreme leader will be able to determine to what extent any possible nuclear deal is sustainable in long term. Even
more than the U.S. Senate, the next supreme leader would be in a
position to renege on any pact with the West and easily justify it
politically or technically. According to the official philosophy of the
Islamic Republic elaborated by its founding father, Ayatollah Khomeini,
the supreme leader is religiously authorized to unilaterally terminate any government contract or agreement, even with Iranian citizens, if he sees it necessary for “expediency of the regime” —which trumps both
constitution and Islamic law (Sharia). Officially, the only legal source
for recognizing the “expediency of the regime” is the ruling ayatollah.
Granted,
there is much we don’t know about the plans for succession in Iran.
First of all, such a choice has been made only once in the entire
36-year history of the Islamic Republic. If we were to assume that the
Assembly of Experts, whose members are all ayatollahs and represent each
country’s province, had the ultimate power to appoint the new leader,
given its current makeup it would certainly choose a hardliner who might
be even be more aggressive on foreign and domestic policy than Khamenei
himself. The Assembly’s preference for hardliners was evident in its
March 10 election for chairman, in which Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi beat
Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, securing 47 votes against Rafsanjani’s 26.
Rafsanjani, who is known in the West as a pragmatist and his support for
a free-market economy, has lost his power base within the political
structure of Islamic Republic since the end of his presidency. He has
lost two major elections, parliamentary and presidential in 2000 and
2005 but in recent years he became popular among supporters of defeated
presidential candidates in 2009, because of his long history of
animosity with Ahmadinejad and his open criticism of the government
suppressive policy toward green movement.
A Shiite theologian by training, Mehdi Khalaji is a
senior fellow at The Washington Institute, focusing on the politics of
Iran and Shiite groups in the Middle East.
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