Lt. Colonel James Zumwalt, USMC (ret)
To date, Iran’s non-cleric presidents have shared a common fate. The political stars in Tehran appear to be falling into an alignment again that suggests a similar fate awaits the country’s current non-cleric president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
In 1979, a popular revolution against the Shah of Iran by a population thirsting for democracy was hijacked by religious zealots hellbent on creating an Islamic Republic denying all freedoms upon which democracies are built. Iran’s new constitution called for the creation of a theocratic nation, over which a senior cleric—the Supreme Leader—held ultimate authority as head of state, leaving the affairs of state to be handled by the president as head of the government. The president was elected for a four year term and limited to serving two. Supposedly, he represented the presidential candidate receiving the highest popular vote during an election. Under the constitution, the Supreme Leader always retains the authority to dismiss the president. The absolute authority wielded by the Supreme Leader is clearly apparent through his relationship with the Council of Guardians. This 12-member Council consists of six experts in Islamic law—all selected by the Supreme Leader—and six jurists, nominated by a head judge—appointed by the Supreme Leader—and then elected by the Iranian Parliament. The Council basically controls a presidential election from the outset, culling the herd of candidates allowed to run. For example, in the 1997 election, of 238 candidates, the Council approved only four. Those rejected included clerics deemed insufficiently dedicated to Islamic values.
Six presidents have so far run the Council’s “gauntlet” of approval and then gone on to win a popular election. The first two were non-clerics, followed by three clerics. President Ahmadinejad, the third non-cleric to hold the office, is now in his second term after he—with the help of current Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei—stole the 2009 election. But, interestingly, while each cleric serving as president completed two four-year terms, no non-cleric serving as president has managed to fully complete an elected term in office.
Abulhassan Banisadr became Iran’s first president in 1980. As president, Banisadr served at the pleasure of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini—the country’s first Supreme Leader. But sixteen months into his term, Banisadr fell out of favor with the Supreme Leader as he began challenging other clerics in power. As a result, Banisadr was impeached by Iran’s Parliament on June 22, 1981 (most likely at Khomeini’s urging.) The military organization established to protect Iran’s theocracy—the Revolutionary Guard—immediately seized the presidential offices, arresting newspaper journalists supportive of Banisadr and executing several of his closest friends in government. Banisadr went into hiding, eventually escaping to France.
Banisadr’s replacement, Mohammad-Ali Rajai, became Iran’s second president. Also a non-cleric, he took office on August 2, 1981 after winning 91% of the vote. However, less than a month later Rajai was assassinated in a bombing attack that killed dozens, also wounding future president/future Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
After winning the presidency with 95% of the vote in 1981, Khamenei became the first of three clerics to fully complete two terms in office. He was followed by Akbar Rafsanjani in 1989 and Mohammad Khatami in 1997. When Supreme Leader Khomeini died in 1989, Khamenei became his replacement—a position he still holds today.
In 2005, non-cleric Ahmadinejad won the presidency with 62% of the vote. In his re-election bid of 2009, despite polls indicating he was losing, he “won”—again with 62% of the vote—an expected result as Khamenei had announced in 2008 he saw Ahmadinejad as president for the next five years.
But, signs are now visible in Tehran suggesting Khamenei may be making preparations for non-cleric Ahmadinejad to go the way of Iran’s first president, non-cleric Banisadr.
Why, after sanctioning the fraudulent 2009 election would Khamenei want to toss his “fair-haired boy” under the bus?
Even if Ahmadinejad is on his way out, little comfort should be taken that madman Mahmoud is being booted—for the outlandishly nutty rationale for ousting him gives us cause to ponder whether any sane person holds the reigns of power in Tehran.
Iran’s clerics are concerned Ahmadinejad, like Banisadr before him, arrogantly challenges their authority. The challenge seems to have started last month when Ahmadinejad dismissed his intelligence minister, Heydar Moslehi, personally selected for that position by Khamenei. The Supreme Leader reinstated Moslehi. In protest, Ahmadinejad refused to attend Cabinet meetings, only returning after an eleven day hiatus. He still has yet to support the Supreme Leader’s reinstatement—disobedience causing members of the Iranian Parliament to demand Ahmadinejad’s impeachment.
Ahmadinejad’s chief of staff, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, whom Khamenei supporters identify as the real power behind the president and who allegedly is being groomed to replace him, was recently arrested, along with two dozen other Ahmadinejad supporters. Mashaei—the father-in-law of Ahmadinejad’s son—had generated criticism among clerics for promoting Iranian nationalism (vice Islamism) and cavorting with a movie star. But it is the nature of the crime of which Mashaei and friends stand accused that is most telling. They are charged with sorcery—i.e., magicians who have invoked the spirits to act against Khamenei and his followers, one of those arrested even being described as “a man with special skills in metaphysics and connections with the unknown worlds.” Such outlandish claims by Tehran’s clerics raises the question whether the patients are truly in control of the insane asylum.
The effort to de-throne Ahmadinejad seems to have started after the release of a film authorized by the president on the return of the 12th Imam or “Mahdi.” The president is an ardent believer that the Mahdi, who disappeared as a child in the 8th century, will return in the 21st to lead Islam to greatness. The Islamic superhero’s return has to be triggered by world chaos, which Ahmadinejad seeks to create, knowing it will lead to war with the West. Ahmadinejad sees himself as the spiritual executioner of the Mahdi’s game plan.
While the film suggests the Mahdi’s return is imminent, friction with the clerics arose as they believe Mahdi’s return cannot be predicted—and that trying to predict it is indicative of a “deviant current” among the president’s supporters. Undoubtedly, the clerics also oppose the film’s role promoted for Ahmadinejad who, as a non-cleric, is portrayed as being more religiously fanatical than are they in triggering the Mahdi’s return.
By promoting himself as a non-cleric spiritual hero among a mass of less spiritual clerics in the film, Ahmadinejad may well have over-stepped the bounds of conduct to be tolerated by the clerics. If he proves unwilling to accept a lesser role for himself, demonstrating contriteness to Khamenei, he may well continue the tradition in Iran of non-cleric presidents failing to complete an elected term.
But, unfortunately, regardless of the outcome, the patients still will be in control of Tehran’s insane asylum.
Family Security Matters Contributing Editor Lt. Colonel James G. Zumwalt, USMC (ret) is a retired Marine infantry officer who served in the Vietnam War, the US invasion of Panama and the first Gulf war. He is the author of "Bare Feet, Iron Will--Stories from the Other Side of Vietnam's Battlefields" and frequently writes on foreign policy and defense issues.
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