Schizoid Islamic Republic

Reign of the ‘Melted Ones’

Newsweek

How Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei keeps control of Iran. He may be more moderate than Washington realizes. ( I beg to differ)

April 6, 2007 - No one in Western intelligence is quite sure who made the final decision to release the British captives this week. But the Iranians themselves have a fair idea, and the nation's fiery president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, seemed to leave little doubt about it. "The pardon of the British sailors signified the Supreme Leader’s kindness," Ahmadinejad told a meeting of Iranian officials in Tehran on Friday. The president was referring to the black-turbaned cleric who presided over the gathering: Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Khamenei, a 68-year-old whose right hand was left paralyzed in a 1981 assassination attempt, has a tough job. He is the constitutionally designated leader of a modern state ruled by religious laws devised 1,400 years ago. And he must placate both the modern and the medieval sides of the schizoid Iranian state—a task that has grown increasingly complex in the 28 years since the Islamist revolution toppled the Shah of Iran. Despite Khamenei’s association with conservative factions within the Iranian government, he is known to be a pragmatic man who is much more in touch with the society than people give him credit for.

People close to him say that he believes in allowing Iranians more freedom in their daily lives in terms of clothing and public life. For the past 27 years, he has been a member of Iran’s Council of Revolution, its president and, since 1990, the nation’s designated Supreme Leader, the official successor to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic state. But Khamenei understands that the majority of Iranians, who were born after the 1979 revolution, don’t necessarily share the ideals of their radical fathers. "If it were up to him he would allow much more freedom in the country than we have now," says a Khamenei associate who, like all Iranians asked to comment on the Supreme Leader, would speak only anonymously.

But whatever Khamenei may wish for, he has to justify his position as Iran’s supreme religious authority by keeping his core conservative constituency happy. These include the diehard religious fanatics who refer to themselves in Farsi as zobeh dar velayat ("those who are melted in the leadership") meaning that their lives are dedicated to Khamenei. The ayatollah knows that it is this political base—the "melted ones"—who will defend him if either he or the nation is ever threatened.

Ahmadinejad himself, a former radical student leader that seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979 (though his personal involvement with that hostage crisis remains unclear), is considered one of the melted ones. But now the perception inside Tehran’s political elite is that Ahmadinejad is damaging Iran’s economy and foreign policy through mismanagement.

As a result, Khamenei is seeking the advice of reformists within the system who believe in change and engagement with the international community but who want to keep the clerical structure of the state intact. After Ahmadinejad’s supporters tallied disastrous results in last fall’s local elections, Khamenei began seeking the advice of former presidents Mohammad Khatami and Hashemi Rafsanjani to shift the system back toward the center. In a speech last March, Khamenei declared that he supports Ahmadinejad’s government but that his support was conditional “on the government fulfilling its promises to people and avoid infighting.”