Iran: Good and Bad News Are the Same

The good news from Iran is that there isn’t going to be any change in the way the Islamic Republic has always behaved.
This is to say the “ Supreme Guide” has decided to swallow his latest humiliation caused by Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh’s assassination in Tehran and refrain from seeking “hard revenge” as his more radical followers hoped. On Tuesday a group of Revolutionary Guards raided the German Goethe Institute in Tehran and shut and plumbed it in retaliation to the German government’s closing of an Iranian propaganda center in the federal republic.
The bad news is also the same: there isn’t going to be any change in the way the Islamic Republic has always behaved.
Newly elected President Masud Pezeshkian isn’t going to be the Iranian Gorbachev as the pro-US faction in the ruling clique had hoped.
Of the 18 men and one woman that former Foreign Minister Muhammad-Javad Zarif, the current spokesman of the pro-US faction, had suggested as Cabinet members only three were approved by the “Supreme Guide” Ali Khamenei.
A sulking Zarif was forced to resign from the non-executive symbolic job Pezeshkian had given him as “strategic adviser” whatever that meant.
Pezeshkian isn’t going to be Iran’s Deng Xiaoping either as the Realpolitik crowd within the regime had hoped for. The Islamic Republic remains committed to “exporting revolution” rather than T-shirts and loafers as China did under Deng.
Pezeshkian’s Cabinet is overwhelmingly dominated by figures connected with the Revolutionary Guard and its security services. Some observers see this as a preparation for a putative post-Khamenei era in which the military-security apparatchiki.
So, what is Pezeshkian going to do in the next four years, provided his tenure lasts that long? One option is to follow the line set by his predecessor the late Ibrahim Raisi. During his 1000 days as president, Raisi was often denigrated as a semi-educated simpleton who wasn’t even able to read the text of speeches written for him.
In hindsight, I disagree. I think he had his own brand of intelligence or craftiness if you like. He understood that in an absolutist regime, the title of president cannot mean the same that it does in a genuine republic. He knew that when you cannot do anything your best bet is to do it with panache.
This is why he was constantly on the move traveling to all of the nation’s 31 provinces, sometimes on more than one occasion, and at least a dozen foreign countries. Almost a third of his term was spent on going somewhere without getting anywhere.
Raisi on the move contrasted with Khamenei’s image as a recluse who has been confined to one square-kilometer area in the capital Tehran.
Raisi’s style was what the French call “furnishing the emptiness.”
He forged the image of a dynamic leader who is constantly present in every scene while his sequential presence amounted to nothing but a huge absence. He was a man of ribbons and scissors, constantly inaugurating new projects that never got anywhere even in Potemkin villages.
Raisi’s style injected a dose of optimism in a deeply pessimistic atmosphere which though it amounted to fool’s gold nevertheless had a soothing effect on some sections of society.
Raisi was also lucky because his tenure came when Joe Biden sat in the White House.
The US president revived his predecessor Barack Obama’s policy of trying to coax Iran into the big international tent. Biden eased a range of sanctions against Iran, enabling it to more than double its income from oil exports during Raisi’s 1000 days as Islamic president.
Can Pezeshkian follow the model set by Raisi?
This is what many regime apologists hope would happen. They believe that attempting any major reform is too risky even to contemplate as the crucial issue of Khamenei’s succession looms larger.
In a sense the Islamic Republic has survived for almost five decades by living on a day-to-day basis, spending what income it gets from oil on ensuring a survival minimum at home and enough resources to feed its surrogates abroad.
However, some observers claim that had Raisi survived his make-believe gambit would have run out of steam.
There is another problem: Pezeshkian is no Raisi. The new president has earned a sobriquet as “pakhmeh” that, translated charitably, means laid-back and uncharitably loafer. Although not much older than Raisi he seems to lack the energy that his predecessor enjoyed. Any admire Pezeshkian’s calm demeanor and his ability to fade away in a crowd like the Cheshire cat’s smile. That may be an advantage but it certainly doesn’t help if he wants to imitate Raisi.
More importantly, the problems that were brushed under the carpet during Raisi’s 1000-day presidential joyride will soon bounce back into Pezeshkian’s face.
To start with the volcano of popular dissent that erupted under Raisi is hissing again and more menacingly.
Right now Iran is witnessing a series of strikes including one by nurses, the first in the nation’s history. Tension is also building in a number of universities where for the first time in four decades, some students are organizing public debates on “sensitive issues” to test the regime’s threshold of pain.
There are also reports, or rather rumors because we cannot directly confirm them, of a rising level of discontent in the military. One sign of that is the absence of uniforms around the “Supreme Guide” in a number of recent public appearances. Khamenei’s decision to blink may have contributed to that discontent, especially among the more radical elements of the military-security coalition.
Despite the help given by the Biden administration the economic situation in the Islamic Republic remains dire.
The move towards hyperinflation has slowed down but not halted and the prospect of negative growth in the next two years throws a gauntlet at the new Pezeshkian team. More importantly brain drain, a constant feature of the Iranian life under the Islamic Republic, is gathering speed. According to best estimates, 1000 “brains” on average are leaving Iran each day.
At the other end of the spectrum large numbers of Afghans are pouring into Iran, at times causing tension that could run out of control.
Last but not least there seems to be no credible mechanism for managing Khamenei’s succession and the inevitable transition period that would follow.
Finally, the prospect of Donald Trump returning to the White House adds another layer of uncertainty to an already complicated situation in Iran.