So now the Ahmadinejad people and the Khamenei people are fighting it out in the streets of Tehran, as Reza tells us. Those who have followed this blog for some time will recognize it as the latest phase in what I call “The War of the Persian Succession,” a nasty fight over who will be the next Supreme Leader of Iran, after the passing of Khamenei.
Remember, too, that Mousavi — the leader of a Green Movement that is very much a player in this struggle — designed a strategy that would lead to the implosion of the regime, not its overthrow in a dramatic confrontation. He believes that the internal conflicts are so severe, that if only pressure can be maintained, the system will come down. He hoped that pressure would come from the West, but it didn’t (even though the sanctions have made life more difficult). So the process is slower than it might have been, but still moving along the lines he designed.
I think it is unlikely that one “faction” will definitively prevail over the other. The leader and the president are siamese twins, fused at a vital part of their anatomies, and separation might well be fatal to both. Each has weapons aimed at the other’s heart, and the weapons consist of information of massive fraud and theft.
The Greens issued a lengthy report on these practices, and on the skullduggery the contending forces are practicing on each other. It’s quite spectacular (h/t Michael Rubin and Ali Alfoneh):
- “Following clerical criticism of Ahmadinejad’s behavior and the policies of his government, Ahmadinejad supporters have pressured the theologians through the Counter Espionage Directorate of the Revolutionary Guards… By installing listening devices in their classes and their offices, they have tried to force them to cooperate with the government and approve of his [Ahmadinejad's] initiatives… In reaction, some theologians threatened to react and put the government in its place, which led the Revolutionary Guards to station special forces units in Qum to suppress any unpredictable movement… This has further angered the theologians.”
- “Following the Office of the Supreme Leader’s decision to transfer the main part of the oil revenue to a special account supervised by a three man group headed by Mojtaba Khamenei… Ahmadinejad used the first cabinet session following this decision to attack Mr. Khamenei and his entourage. He called this decision insulting and restriction of the cabinet’s access to the oil revenue. He [Ahmadinejad] called the Supreme Leader ‘ignorant’ and a ‘tool.’”
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