Iran's Iron Fist in the Velvet Glove.

Iran’s Iron Fist in the Velvet Glove

The first day of February 1979 witnessed  an aged, exiled, black robed man set foot on Iranian soil after a lengthy exile of fourteen years to an enchanted audience, to a victorious revolution. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had become the face of what many have since called the ‘Islamic’ revolution of 1979 which dethroned Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the erstwhile Shah (king) of Iran. The revolution that deposed the Pahlavi regime was fathered by a host of other forgotten forces besides Islamic fundamentalists, its eventual vanguards. Although over emphasized, the significant role of the clerical class in the revolution is undeniable. The most arduous forces that comprised the ‘anti Shah’ coalition included contributors from all across the political spectrum, from the extreme left to the extreme right (which is why calling it an Islamic revolution as of 1979 is analytically superficial). The ‘Islamic’ part of the Revolution began only when Ayatollah Khomeini and his clerical brigade assumed the reigns of constructing a new Iranian political order.

Iranian politics is a dense subject. Almost like a bottomless well, one can always delve a little deeper. The discourse about Iranian polity is always at a risk of becoming shallow for there seems to be a much touted ‘obviousness’ to the Iranian situation, the Islamic revolution of 1979 that is. While for the Westerners the revolution and the embassy siege of 1979 is often the vantage point, for most Iranians it is the evening of  August 19, 1953. It was the day the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)  in compliance with the British Intelligence services (MI-6) mounted Operation Ajax (British called it operation Boot) which entailed the removal, by illegal means, of the elected Prime Minister of Iran who nationalized Iranian oil in 1951, Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh. For my project however the story begins way back in 1906, when Iran became the first Muslim majority country ever to embrace an Enlightenment inspired secular constitution after the other famous Iranian revolution - the constitutional revolution of 1905-07.

Given such various points of reference, the task of creating an analytical model for classifying Iranian political structures is lengthy, complex, and sensitive. Why did I elect the constitutional revolution as a starting point ? To what extent does the current political structure borrow from the pre-revolutionary one (if one gets past the rhetoric)? On what grounds did I classify the institutions as constituting Iran’s Iron fist or her Velvet glove ? A heap of such significant questions awaits my attention as I embark on the daunting task of explaining one of the most complex political cultures to have existed.

Methodology

The foremost component of my research was the assessment and brief translation of the relevant articles of the Iranian Constitution. (explaining the ‘objectives’ of each state institution). The translations are strictly literal, I  however provided a separate commentary on my understanding of it based on the conceptualization of the thesis. Also, in this research I did not attempt to deal with populations,  no sociological or anthropological approaches were employed. The paper is confined to a scholarly treatment of the political institutions of Iran established by the constitution. A little deserves to be said about my choice of the ‘starting point’ -  Constitutional Revolution of 1905. In my conceptualization of the Iranian political structure, the 1905 revolution lays the foundation of the regime structure in modern Iran, much of which was inherited even by the Islamic Republic. All subsequent events/concepts that I chose to stress upon have been included in the study strictly on the basis of their contribution to the working of the current political structure in Iran. The literature that I’ve been engaging with is a body of analytical work on the functioning of the Iranian state (both Pre and post revolution).

At the ‘physical’ front of the project, a web designing application called Scalar helped me create an interactive chart explaining the Iranian decision making structure. Major part of the project was  based in Scalar’s book format. With separate ‘chapters’ dedicated to each political institution, each chapter explains the working of the institution with relevant annotated excerpts from the Constitution posted as well.  A path like feature allows one to create a structure wherein various branches or ‘diversions’ in the path can be further created. Each branch can be clicked on further to move to a separate page that explains the working of that particular institution (It will also feature the original and translated articles from the Constitution). The nonlinear  structure chart, additionally, features annotated excerpts from the Iranian Constitution.  

I must admit to the “outsiders commentary, “ as Theda Skocpol put it when describing Iran. Given the sensitive nature of my particular project (the sensitivities of Iranians and Americans are inextricably linked to it), I must strike a decent balance that accommodates the sensitivity of the subject without compromising its academic rigor. For achieving this objective I see peer review to be of utmost importance.  

Analysis

The current political establishment in Iran is an astute combination of revolutionary ideals of the clergy, particularly of Ayatollah Khomeini, and the preexisting political institutions. The new Islamic regime in a masterful move of statesmanship managed to create an order that accommodated both pre and post revolutionary sets of institutions. Said Arjomand, a contemporary scholar of Iranian institution building called it “a project of Islamicization of the Pahlavi state,” unlike the popular misconception that the new Islamic regime completely did away with the old Pahlavi order. To view the Iranian political system as a uniform set of clerical pronouncements, which many analyses tend to do, is to ignore the structural flexibility of it, a point Ervand Abrahamian vividly drives home in his seminal work, “Khomeinism”. Iran’s complex political process may seem to be covered in zealous rhetoric, beyond the rhetoric however lies an ingenious marriage of authoritarianism and democracy. The alliance between post revolution institutions like The Supreme Leader or the Assembly of Experts, and pre-revolution institutions like The Presidency or the Majlis (Parliament) is the structural backbone of the Iranian decision making process.  

The decision making process within the Iranian regime is the product of a fusion between post and pre revolutionary institutions that I conceptualize as  Iron fisted and Velvet gloved.  Iran’s Iron fist comprises of the institutions that are the direct off springs of the revolution of 1979, its Velvet glove are the ones that originally emerged out of the Constitutional Revolution of 1905, were carried on by the Pahlavi regime and later imbibed by the Islamic Republic.  The constitution of Iran systematically precludes the pre revolutionary  institutions (Velvet glove) from participating in the checking and balancing of the Post revolutionary (Iron fist) institutions putting the Iron fist at the forefront of the decision making process while marginalizing the Velvet glove. This structural nuance splits the mode of authority within Iran into two unequal proportions, which I argue resembles an Iron fist in the Velvet glove.  The negotiation between Iran’s Iron fist and Velvet gloved institutions is the central tenet of the current political process.

Why ‘Iron fist/ Velvet glove ?’

The use of a heavy metaphor, Iron fist and Velvet glove,  to denote a conceptual framework from which to understand Iranian decision making is prompted by the conceptual nuances that this metaphor encapsulates -  the purpose(s) and objective(s) of the institutions, the unequal balance of power between them,  and the ultimate compliance that the institutions eventually demonstrate.

An Iron fist in a Velvet glove is, conceptually, a single unit that produces outcomes mutually. The objectives, purposes and abilities of the these two categories  are fundamentally different, however. The Iron fist reserves the authority and sheer power to move the wrist as it may deem appropriate. The Velvet glove, although toes the line of the Iron fist due its inferior authority (authority superiority/inferiority in my conceptualization is determined by the constitutional powers alloted to the Iron Firs/Velvet glove), reduces the impact of the Iron fist, which is  the primary purpose of having a Velvet glove.  Also, the Iron fist almost never comes in direct contact with the ‘subject’, the task is inevitably and deliberately reserved for the Velvet glove.

Situating the Iron fist/Velvet glove Concept

Literature on the current regime structure in Iran can be divided, broadly, into two categories - one that traces the lineage, mechanics and manifestation of the revolution itself, and, the other that explains the aftermath, the rise of a new ruling elite and the subsequent erection of new state structures. The literature that emanated during the first republic, 1979 to 1989, focused mainly on the factors that led to the revolution while during the second republic, 1989 to 1997, is when the scholarship turned toward exploring the newly formed institutions. In the course of my review of the existing literature I noticed a trend, that institution building has been viewed as one monolithic process and as a mere corollary of the revolution, a notion H.E Chehabi challenges in his article The Political Regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Comparative Perspective, Government and Opposition. The argument Chehabi makes is that the process that led to the creation of specific institutions in post revolutionary Iran was not an outcome of the revolution but a continuation of it.  The notion that institution building was a secondary process to the revolution has contributed to the gross underrepresentation of literature that concentrates  exclusively on institution building. My research will aim to contribute to this sparsely explored subject wherein the institutions will be placed in direct focus with each institution assessed in light of its own formation, but also as a  part of the larger decision making process.

Having surveyed the existing terms, concepts and models that exist on the relationship of Iran’s two sets of  institutions or its equivalent in other systems, the specificity of the Iranian situation seemed to be compromised. A few models, Pre/Post Revolutionary or Secular/non Secular for instance, that currently exist within academia tend to only address rather specific features of the Iranian institutions while forgoing the larger pattern. The Pre/Post revolution model, which is a part of my conceptualization but only a part, is conceptually confined, much like the Secular/ Non Secular model, in that it does not explain how despite the stark differences these institutions together comprise of one robust system. These existing models ignore the current, holistic contribution that a particular institution brings to the Iranian decision making structure. A pre/post revolution institution or a secular/non secular institution can determine either only the origin or the only purpose of the particular institution, classifying it as Iron fist or Velvet glove however helps us define the institution as a part of one system (under one conceptualization )through which decisions are reached in Iran. While the existing models classify institutions on how they relate to the revolution, the Iron fist/Velvet glove model attempts to establish their responsibility of and contribution to the decision making process in Iran.

Analyzing Iran’s Iron fist and Velvet glove

The Iranian political spectrum exhibits striking similarities to the Iron fist/Velvet glove concept leading me to introduce the Iron fist/Velvet glove model to explain specifically the Iranian case. Just like the Iron fist and the Velvet glove (metaphor), the seats of power in Iran are asymmetrically split between pre and post revolution institutions. Also, the direct involvement or ‘contact’ of people with decision making lies primarily with the pre revolutionary institutions. Given the drastic differences in the purpose, objectives, authority, and people’s participation, these two sets of institutions just like the Iron fist in a Velvet glove, work together. The robustness of the Iranian system lies in the flexibility endured by its Iron fist and its Velvet glove. Based on these initial similarities, I posited a working relationship between Pre and Post revolution Institutions through the Iron fist/Velvet glove prizm.

These institutions eventually work in harmony with each other but they serve essentially different visions. The Iron fist of Iran works rigorously to protect the “ideological foundation” (Abrahamian, 30) of the revolution while the Velvet gloved institutions are the “pragmatic intrusions”(Taykeh, 127) that aim at improvising the ideals of revolution to be in tune with the changing political and social realities.

Strengths and Weaknesses of the Iron Fist and Velvet Glove

The political and constitutional might of the Iron fist of Iran is what it makes it the Iron fist, in that it possesses the constitutional authority to override most of what the Velvet glove may seek to accomplish. All Velvet glove institutions are subject to the checks and balance of the Iron fist, but not the other way round. In no instance does any Velvet glove institution have the constitutional authority to ‘check or balance’ any iron fisted institution, a split that begs examination from a structural standpoint.

About the objectives of the two sets of institutions, the Iron fist is “committed to guarding the theocracy from excessive pragmatic intrusions.” The Velvet glove, although less powerful in terms of constitutional authority, has deeper and longer roots in the Iranian society (the idea of a cleric led government is rather new to Iran and Iranians) and is a living embodiment of the feats of the 1905 Constitutional Revolution that sought to democratize Iran. The significance of the Velvet glove of Iran, besides the widely, deeply penetrated social roots, is that it possesses more and more the ability to shape public discourse in Iran. Besides the two dissimilar strengths and weaknesses of the two sets of institutions, they also work as a unit making the Iranian political establishment a rather robust one. This paper will focus on the dissimilarity in the respective approaches of the the Iron fist and the Velvet glove and further illustrate the fractures that the Iranian regime has been enduring and that the presence of these fractures has become a defining characteristic, almost a strongpoint, of the Iranian decision making ‘wrist.’

The following section discusses the constitutional authority of legislative and executive institutions (Supreme Leadership and Presidency, the Guardianship Council and the Consultative Assembly) in the Iron fist/ Velvet glove dynamic.

The Supreme Leader and the Presidency

Ayatollah Khomeini’s stature in Iran can be gauged by the title conferred upon him by the constitution of Iran. “From here on the conscience of the people is in the exalted imitation of ‘Imam’ Khomeini,” reads the preamble to the Constitution. The significance of the entire statement lies in the word Imam.( See footnotes for an elaboration on the significance of being called an ‘Imam’ in Iran)

Around Ayatollah Khomeini was erected the office of the Supreme Leader, the single most powerful political authority in Iran.The philosophy of Supreme leadership invested in one figure/ a committee of figures from the clergy was provided by Khomeini himself, it a reinterpretation and reapplication of the concept of Velayat e Faqih (Guardianship of the jurist). The Supreme leader reserves the authority to veto any proposals or bills by the Parliament or by the President, is the commander in chief of the Armed forces and the Republican Guard, enjoys the final word on foreign policy and is appointed for life. In addition, the constitution also vests in the “Leader” the power to appoint or dismiss the highest judiciary officials, vet the presidential candidates, pardon convicts, and the constitutional authority to invest his powers into any other “person.”

The only way for the Supreme Leader to be impeached is by the Assembly of Experts, a body of 88 clerics popularly elected every ten years to appoint a new or review the incumbent Supreme Leader. There is however no precedent for removal of a Supreme Leader. The only means of checking the power of  the Supreme Leader, a post revolution/Iron fist institution, is held by the Assembly of Experts which is another post revolution/Iron fist institution.  

Institution of the Supreme Leader is the central tenet of Iran’s Iron fist. The nature of its constitutional powers render all other institutions almost powerless to introduce any kind of improvisation to the existing  ideals of the revolution. The fact that a non clergymen cannot even be considered to run for the Assembly of Experts, let alone for the post of the Supreme Leader strongly suggests the strict objective of protecting the revolution from the non clergy influence, from anything that predates or undermines the revolution, a classic trait of the Iron fist.

Consider in contrast the constitutional powers of  the Velvet glove counterpart of the Supreme Leader,  the presidency. The President of Iran is elected every four years, for a maximum of two terms by popular vote. Presenting the domestic budget, appointment  of ambassadors on the referral of the Foreign Minister,  and introducing employment policies after the approval of the Majlis of course, are the clearly demarcated constitutional powers and responsibilities of the President.

The Presidency is the prime Velvet glove institution because (besides predating the revolution and falling into the lower rank of constitutional authorities) it strives to further the ideals of the revolution with the changing times (partly due to its pre existence to the revolution). Part of being a Velvet glove institution is being less able, constitutionally, to over power the Iron fisted institutions. The Presidency enjoys no extra ordinary constitutional powers, unlike the Iron fist institutions.  However, another significant aspect of being the Velvet glove is the ability to reduce the harshness of the Iron fist, which I posit the Presidency has. It is a meaningful institution to Iranians, something evident from the turnout of  around 70% in the last presidential elections in 2013. Prior to that, allegations of a forged election triggered what many called the ‘Green Movement’ in 2009. Thousands of young students thronged the streets when the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a hardline nationalist, declared victory over a reformer by the name of Mousavi, that many in Iran viewed as a betrayal of the institution. Such an outpour, the largest in Iran’s history ever since the revolution, suggests the societal influence of the Velvet glove. The Presidency in particular enjoys the authority to shape public discourse in Iran, to be in direct contact with the public, something the Iron fist by definition is unable to do.

The Guardianship Council and the Consultative Assembly

In yet another striking, ingenious alliance of two almost opposite institutions, the Guardianship Council and the Consultative Assembly function hand in glove. Comprised of only religious jurists, the Guardianship Council  is a twelve member examining body that possesses constitutional authority on matters of vetting candidates for all elections in Iran (from municipal elections to the consultative council).Without the consent of the Guardianship Council, no candidate can make it to the ballot.  It also has the primary duty to deem laws and treaties proposed by the Consultative Assembly or the President as Islamic or otherwise. If deemed un Islamic or anti revolutionary (in accordance with howsoever the council defines the terms), the Council reserves the right to downright veto it.  Guardianship Council’s Velvet glove counterpart, the 270 seat Consultative Assembly, on the other hand, has the constitutional ability to introduce bills, approve foreign aid amongst others, but is systematically undermined by the constitution. Only the second article pertaining the Consultative Assembly (Article 72) clearly suggests that its actions must be constantly vetted by the Guardianship Council. The Constitution further outlines in article 93 that the Consultative assembly “ceases to possess legal status” without the Guardianship Council.

    In this set of Iron fist and Velvet glove institutions as well the Velvet glove institutions fail to check the institutions that belong to the Iron fist. For the Guardianship council half of the jurists are appointed by the Supreme Leader while the other half by the Consultative Assembly. There is however a complication in the latter provision. The choice of the six jurists selected by the Consultative Assembly is made from a list of references made by the head of the judiciary, who in fact is appointed by the Supreme Leader. The chain of balancing and controlling, again, remains within the Iron fist/post revolutionary institutions. On the other hand, all candidates to and all bills by the Consultative Assembly can by simply ruled out by a council of twelve jurists. Moreover, the legal existence of the Assembly rests solely upon the Guardianship council, which clearly depicts an unreciprocated arrangement of power.  

Conclusion    

Iran’s Iron fist and her Velvet glove have assumed specific roles in the spectacle of Iranian decision making. Enormous disagreements between these two sets of institutions and yet the Iranian decision making ‘wrist’ works, due to mutual compromise. While the Iron fist presses to maintain revolutionary puritanism, the Velvet has become the political ally of Iranian who carefully have embarked to, not for a regime change, but a change in the regime.

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