A Grandson’s Remarks Hint at Unrest in Iran And Iraq
August 11, 2003
EurasiaNet
Nicolas Birch
The image of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, founder of Iran’s theocracy, looks down from posters in Shia districts of Baghdad. Iran, officially neutral in the US-led invasion of Iraq, has bristled when American President George W. Bush has warned it against interfering in Iraq’s post-invasion chaos.
But an August 5 statement by Khomeini’s 45-year-old grandson, Sayyid Hussein Khomeini, shows how that chaos can have Iran’s ruling clerics on the defensive.
"Iranians insist on freedom, but they are not sure where it will come from," Khomeini told journalists in Najaf August 5. "If it comes from inside, they will welcome it, but if it was necessary for it to come from abroad, especially from the United States, people will accept it." These startling remarks quickly circulated around the world’s newswires, deepening awareness that Iran’s ruling clerics are facing unprecedented challenges to their legitimacy. Khomeini, by vaulting himself into the global spotlight, may have been positioning himself as a champion of Iran’s millions of disaffected youth. If he taps Iraqis’ yearnings for freedom as well, Khomeini could contribute to turbulence in both countries.
A little over a year ago, Iran’s fundamentalist strain seemed to be growing inexorably stronger.The clerics who retain final authority in the government are still pressing to capitalize on reform-minded voters’ impatience with President Mohammed Khatami and his allies. But they are being careful about making overtures to Iraq. The country has responded to Bush administration scolding by saying that "no one has the right to interfere in another country’s affairs." Amir Mohebbian, a columnist for the hard-line daily Resalat, professes that Tehran’s policymakers have "no intention" of forcing their "political model" on Iraq. Khomeini’s remarks may suggest that the model in question faces too much friction at home to be exportable.
Some observers dispute this, noting that senior ayatollahs in Qom have backed a young cleric in the holy Iraqi city of Najaf and that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been known to work closely with Iraqi-born members of the Iran-backed Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. A Khamenei representative accompanied that group’s leader, Ayatollah Bakr al-Hakim, when he returned to Iraq in May. Seyed Mostafa Mohaghegh Damad, an expert on Islamic law at Tehran University, argues that Iranian fundamentalist rulers see attractive prospects for a "clone theocracy" in Iraq. He sees liberation from Saddam as a chance for "those wishing to conform to the age-old precepts of Shia tradition – the pious, apolitical links between senior ayatollahs and their followers." But these links would not necessarily entail political devotion. Indeed, shortly after al-Hakim arrived in Iraq, Iranian press said he professed himself "a religious clergyman" rather than a politician.
It is not clear how Iranian fundamentalists can deploy client Iraqis like Hakim, who have at times made conciliatory gestures toward the Bush administration. Western observers who have fixated on Khatami’s failure to push broad reforms through the power structure may overestimate the fear that the ruling clerics command in Iran. One London-based clerical opposition group estimates that of approximately 5,000 ayatollahs in Iran, only 80 wholeheartedly support the regime. And of 14 exalted "Grand Ayatollahs" inside Iran, many ayatollahs now question the marriage of governing power with religious purity. And the younger Khomeini’s remarks about freedom indicate that the clerics’ muted ideology corresponds to a muted authority.
Some Iranian analysts see signs that dissatisfaction in Iran is beginning to spread to traditionally pro-regime clerics. They point to remarks in May 2002 by Ayatollah Ebrahim Amini, deputy head of the conservative Assembly of Experts. "The regime cannot maintain itself in power by force," he told a crowd in Qom then. "Society is on the verge of an explosion." More than a year later, these remarks by an official of a group that can appoint or remove the Supreme Leader cannot easily be discounted as alarmist.
One phenomenon that the young Khomeini’s remarks highlighted was the contrast in reputation between his grandfather and the current Supreme Leader. The older Khomeini, for all his vitriol, had a reputation as a peerless scholar. Khamenei does not. "Senior clerics treat his theological pronouncements with disdain," says Nadeem Kazmi, spokesman for the London-based Imam Al-Khoei Benevolent Foundation, a charity with close links to a revered but apolitical ayatollah based in Najaf. Critics say that Khamenei has compensated for his lack of credentials with efforts to stifle dissent among clerics. An indeterminate number of dissenting clerics – perhaps as many as 60 – have been executed on the orders of special clerical courts since 1989.
In this context, the young Khomeini’s remarks about the United States looking like an acceptable agent for liberation may block any inroads clerics might have hoped to forge into Iraq. Some doubt whether Shia in general can incite Iranians who have lived with a generation’s worth of disappointment under the clerics. "Young people are far more interested in Cyrus the Great and all that nationalist claptrap" than in Shia, says Ali Ansari, who teaches Middle Eastern history at the University of Durham. Sayyid Hussein Khomeini’s ideas may tap those young Iranians’ anxiety for a new political model. That could foster instability in Iran and Iraq.
Editor’s Note: Nicolas Birch specializes in Turkey, Iran and the Middle East.
http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav081103.shtml