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Let Iranians decide regime changes

To hear United States President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney tell it, Iranians live under the boot of a monolithic dictatorship run by fanatics. An increasingly vibrant debate ahead of the parliamentary elections next March is giving the lie to the White House’s totalitarian parodies. Regime opponents hope that this burgeoning national dialogue may sow the seeds of a wider reformation and an end to talk of war.

Iranian media report numerous parties and factions scrambling to form alliances as the Majlis poll approaches. At one end of the spectrum stands the United Principle-ist Front, comprising the Sweet Smell of Service group, the Self-Sacrificers (Martyrs) Association, and the Coalition of the Followers of the Imam.

According to the Farhang-e Ashti newspaper, other rival coalitions are organising nationally. Traditional conservatives are looking to Muhammad Baqer Qalibaf, who succeeded President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as Tehran’s Mayor and has been at odds with him since. He in turn is linked to Ali Larijani, the nuclear security chief and protégé of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei who was recently demoted by Mr. Ahmadinejad.

A third, moderate conservative or “pragmatic” alliance is coalescing around the former President, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, and other prominent Ahmadinejad opponents such as Hasan Rowhani and former Majlis speaker, Mehdi Karrubi. Their popular standard-bearer is expected to be Mohammed Khatami, another former two-term President who favours dialogue with the West. As in any Western campaign, complaints about mud-slinging, character assassination, and dirty tricks abound. The Participation Front has formally protested against “the unseemly conduct of some news programmes [that are] conducting psychological warfare.” The Militant Clerics Association hit back, saying media bias was all the other way.

Mr. Ahmadinejad’s performance as President has come in for criticism, notably for his failure to create jobs, distribute oil income, and raise living standards. Mr. Khatami attacked him for allegedly fiddling the books and deceiving the nation.

A more fundamental assault on the political establishment came last week, from editorialist Ali-Asghar Khodayari in E’temad-e Melli. Younger generations were fed up with “the Stone Age dinosaurs” in the current leadership who were only interested “in defending the status quo and [who] employ all their power to protect the past which they believe they founded,” he wrote. Ideological inflexibility, coupled with self-interest, encouraged intolerance and radicalism. Those in power had consequently resorted to “the most hardline and violent methods in dealing with their opponents.” This state of affairs could not last, he predicted.

Such vigorous exchanges are sharply at odds with Mr Bush’s imagined picture of a nation in chains. But they are also encouraging opposition hopes that a parliamentary defeat for Mr. Ahmadinejad’s allies next March may translate into a presidential defeat in early 2009.

Under this scenario, Mr. Bush and Mr. Ahmadinejad may leave office at roughly the same time — a democratic regime change that could save Iran and the world a lot of grief, if only the U.S. would hold fire. — ©Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2007

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