Tuesday April 7, 2009

Column:

In Iran, The Supreme Leader wields supreme power.

And on June 12th the world will bear witness to that power. On June 12th the Grand Ayatollah Khamenei, The Supreme Leader, will choose the next president of the Islamic Republic.

Certainly, the people of Iran will be the ones in the voting booths. Realistically, there is only one vote that counts in Iran.

The decision facing the Grand Ayatollah Khamenei is not an easy one. He must tap the candidate who will best move the country in the direction the Grand Ayatollah wants it to take and move it along with, not in defiance of, the Iranian people. At stake in this election are the hearts and minds of the Iranian people. At stake in this election is religious adherence. At stake in this election is a move towards the Ayatollah Khamenei's brand of Shiite Islam.

The Supreme Leader will decide which one of two men will best realize his, the Supreme Leader's, vision for the future of Iran. He will choose between the current leader, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a man whom the Grand Ayatollah Khamenei has supported and of whom he was once very fond and between Houssein Mousavi.

The major conflict on the streets of Iran today revolves around support for the policies embraced by Ahmadinejad and the policies of the reformist movement which, in the last Iranian parliamentary election, wrested thirty percent of the parliament away from Ahmadinejad. The head of the reformist movement is Houssein Mousavi.

The reformists are not liberals. But like liberals, the reformists of Iran want accountability and economic change. Mousavi, the leading candidate has successfully combined the forces of all the reformers into one strong, nearly united, voice. That feat will impact on the decision making process of the Grand Ayatollah. Mousavi succeeded in uniting political factions against the current leadership and he did it without using negative tactics and tricks and without resorting to anti-Muslim platforms.

In addition to having created a formidable political power base for himself, the current leader of the reformists has an impressive personal power base. Houssein Mousavi is well known in Iran and he combines his power with the still lingering power of the previous President and the power of another albeit less powerful Ayatollah, the Ayatollah Mohammed Khatami.

In a recent press conference Mousavi laid two very important issues at the feet of the people of Iran. The issues allowed the people to immediately and easily distinguish between the established leadership and the reformers.

In an absolute break with Ahmadinejad who has publicly denied the Holocaust, Mousavi said that he condemned the murder of the Jews by the Nazis during the Holocaust. And Mousavi welcomed talks with the United States provided that the cost of those talks was not too high for Iran which he defined as having to give up the Iranian nuclear program.

The Iranian reformer was pushing two very hot buttons, not just hot button issues in Iran but hot button issues elsewhere in the world. There is no doubt that Ahmadinejad knows that the Nazis perpetrated a Holocaust, but he uses the issue as a fulcrum to unite Muslims against Israel. And in many ways Mousavi's perspective on nuclear development is exactly the same as Ahmadinejad's perspective. Mousavi just phrased it differently.

The Grand Ayatollah has been very pleased with Ahmadinejad until now. But he has expressed frustration with the fact that Iran's strategy has not been very successful in luring more of the undecided, neutral countries out of the sphere of US influence. That miscalculation by Ahmadinejad has cost Iran dearly in economic terms and in political terms. There have even been Muslim nations which have moved closer to the United States and that new political reconfiguration of the map sharply stings Iran. Iran counted on Muslim loyalty above everything else and has been deeply shocked that the Sunni Muslim world has not rallied around them.

As he makes his decision, as he chooses the man to lead Iran, the Grand Ayatollah Khamenei will be thinking about the cost of further isolation. He will be thinking about whether a change in leader will bring about a change in Iran's economy and in Iran's standing in the world. On June 12th we will all be a lot smarter.

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