A Different Kind of Fireworks in Iran

While we watched Independence Day fireworks displays here in the USA, major political and religious fireworks were flying in Iran. Specifically, this news could prove to be highly significant.

The most important group of religious leaders in Iran called the disputed presidential election and the new government illegitimate on Saturday, an act of defiance against the country’s supreme leader and the most public sign of a major split in the country’s clerical establishment.

...The government has tried to paint the opposition and its top presidential candidate, Mir Hussein Moussavi, as criminals and traitors, a strategy that now becomes more difficult — if not impossible.

“This crack in the clerical establishment, and the fact they are siding with the people and Moussavi, in my view is the most historic crack in the 30 years of the Islamic republic,” said Abbas Milani, director of the Iranian Studies Program at Stanford University. “Remember, they are going against an election verified and sanctified by Khamenei.”

The announcement came on a day when Mr. Moussavi released documents detailing a campaign of fraud by the current president’s supporters, and as a close associate of the supreme leader called Mr. Moussavi and former President Mohammad Khatami “foreign agents,” saying they should be treated as criminals.

[...]

With its statement Saturday, the association of clerics — formed under the leadership of the revolution’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini — came down squarely on the side of the reform movement.

How important is this schism in the Iranian clerical establishment? Here is an analysis which I think hits on several important points:

There's about 30 living marja right now, or Grand Ayatollahs, most of them in Iran at Qom, a substantial minority in Iraq at Najaf, and a handful in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and it's notable the number of Iranian marja who have come out against Khamenei - who a lot of religious scholars believe isn't really a marja - that he was wrongfully elevated to the position from Hojatoleslam in order to succeed Khomeini, not unlike taking a Bishop and making him the Pope because you you didn't trust any of the Archbishops or Cardinals. If you ask me, the Archbishops and Cardinals (the marja and ayatollahs) are likely to harbor resentment.

So the question that I think people should be focusing on this week - has Iran abandoned velayat-e faqih - the belief that Islamic scholars should lead the State - and if so, does that mean Khamenei's power base will shrink? From where I sit, Khamenei has scrapped velayat-e faqih and turned Iran into a garden-variety totalitarian state. Even dictatorships need constituents to stay alive, and if the ulama, the learned Islamic clerics, think that the Islamic Republic is no longer Islamic nor a Republic, will they retreat into insular study like they did in Iraq under Hussein? If so, it'll take one of the legs out from under Khamenei's chair, and 3-legged chairs aren't very stable.

Essentially, the marjas - "Grand Ayatollahs" - are the highest religious authorities in Shi'a Islam (the vast majority of it, anyway) behind the Holy Koran, the prophets and the Imams (there are 12 Imams, the last of whom is believed to be living in "Occultation" since 872). So, yes, the marjas are important, especially in a system which believes that the highest and most learned Islamic scholars should rule the state. [Note: here is a list of the 29 current marjas]

By the way, perhaps the most important marja in the Shi'a world is Ali al-Sistani, born in Iran but living in Iraq since 1951. Based on this analysis and others, I'd say it's unlikely that Ali al-Sistani will speak out. But if he does so, and if he does so forcefully against Khamenei and the election results...well, watch out. Stay tuned...

UPDATE: VP Joe Biden this morning "raised the pressure on Iran by appearing to give a green light to a future military strike against Iran."

When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was here this spring, he said that he had agreed to give President Obama’s engagement policy until the end of the year to bear some fruit. After that deadline passed, Israel would feel free to take on the “existential threat” posed by Iran with military force if necessary.

Three times, I asked Biden if the Obama Administration would stand in the way of an Israeli military strike. Three times, he repeated that Israel was free to do what it needed to do. “If the Netanyahu government decides to take a course of action different than the one being pursued now, that is their sovereign right to do that. That is not our choice.”