Ahmadinejad's assault on the mullahs intensifies
Friday, October 1, 2010 at 5:38PM 
Brilliant World Politics Review piece by JAMSHEED K. CHOKSY at Indiana U (go Hoosiers!). Been waiting a while for someone to really lay this out.
Some bits:
Despite some typically incendiary remarks, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's attendance at the U.N. General Assembly's 65th session in New York was marked by a low-key tone noted by many. The change in tone, including a reported willingness to resume talks with the U.S. and its allies, reflects the impact of Iran's domestic politics. For increasingly, Ahmadinejad's real battle is at home, against the mullahs who brought him to power. And in that struggle, Ahmadinejad and his allies are increasingly embracing Iran's venerable 2,500-year-old national heritage to attack its recent three-decade Islamist experiment.
The latest salvo, via a Web site called Mashanews run by Ahmadinejad's chief of staff, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, didn't mince words. "Iran needs to remove the mullahs from power once for all," it read, "and return to a great civilization without the Arab-style clerics who have tainted and destroyed the country for the past 31 years." The executive branch's current stance on the Shiite clergymen who have shaped Iranian politics since 1979 is summed up as, "din (religion) should be distinct from dowla (state)." Indeed, Ahmadinejad's supporters have begun comparing him to King Cyrus the Great, the founder of the Persian Empire who kept those two institutions separate.
The shift is based on the political realities in Tehran. Having survived the last election thanks to his allies in the civil bureaucracy, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards, and the Basij paramilitary, Ahmadinejad now has little to fear from the mullahs and their supporters. So he has begun to insist that "the executive is the most important branch of government," thereby challenging oversight by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Islamic political institutions.
That is the wow(!) analysis I've been looking for. Really spectacular piece worth reading in full. The mullahs have fallen from power. We are only beginning to realize the problems and possibilities that ensue.
Reader Comments (2)
I am reminded by Audre Lourde's statement "The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house." There never was a more misplaced statement. It is (so often) exactly the master's tools that dismantle the master's house. Ahmadinejad was meant to be the vehicle to re-invigorate the Islamic revolution. He might be trying to re-invigorate the IRGC & Baseej, but he is now doing everything he can to bring down veleyat-e faqih (custodianship of the jurist). It seems that he believes that he is one of the "nails of the Mahdi" who receives direct inspiration if not instructions from God, and so does not need the clerics, let alone the Supreme Leader. It won't be long before *lots* of others are claiming this, no matter the supposed numeric limits on how many of these there are supposed to be. Then we'll get the *real* Islamic revolution where individuals start making their own decisions about what is and what is not "Islamic", much as Luther touched off centuries of religious chaos with the Protestant churches going in lots of different directions and arguing over all manner of issues. The need for better rule-sets becomes absolutely imperative (just as Saudi Arabia is discovering with the explosion of fatwas from anybody who can claim a religious title).
Blast the gates of ijtihad wide open! They've been closed for far too long! But make the rule-sets so the discussions can be made civil and lead to something useful.
'return to a great civilization without the Arab-style clerics who have tainted and destroyed the country for the past 31 years." The executive branch's current stance on the Shiite clergymen who have shaped Iranian politics since 1979 is summed up as, "din (religion) should be distinct from dowla (state)." Indeed, Ahmadinejad's supporters have begun comparing him to King Cyrus the Great, the founder of the Persian Empire who kept those two institutions separate.'
And remember the great time of Babylon, the impact of Code of Hammurabi, the Persian social and intellectual influence on Jewish exiles ... and that it was Persians who increased the outreach of Islam beyond and Middle East cultures beyond the Arabic tribal orientations that still cause themselves difficulty today.
Still, West needs an Alexander who understands implications.