The Shark Stops Swimming

Iran's supreme leader has just ousted his most formidable rival. Are the Islamic Republic's political games over? Or are they just beginning?

BY BARBARA SLAVIN | MARCH 8, 2011

Iranian politics increasingly resemble a brutal game of musical chairs.

Last month, two former senior politicians who ran against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2009 disappeared into political detention. On Tuesday, March 8, Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani -- a former president and for three decades one of Iran's most powerful politicians -- lost his post as head of the Assembly of Experts, the body of clerics that theoretically supervises the Supreme Leader of Iran and chooses his successor.

Rafsanjani's replacement by Ayatollah Mohammad Reza Mahdavi Kani, an elderly conservative who is bound to a wheelchair, is the culmination of a slow-moving purge by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who, ironically, acquired the top job at Rafsanjani's instigation in 1989. The apparent intent is to strip other Iranian institutions of any authority, further demoralize Iran's opposition Green Movement, and prove that the Arab uprisings of the past two months will stop at the border with Iran.

It may work -- for now.

However, by silencing so many of those who worked within Iran's complicated political system to institute reforms, Khamenei is narrowing his base of support and increasing the likelihood that Iranians will take to the streets or, at a minimum, boycott future elections and deny the regime any semblance of legitimacy.

"Rafsanjani was the last obstacle to consolidation of power of the hard-liners," says Mehdi Khalaji, an Iran expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. His removal is "the last nail in the coffin of reform in Iran."

Rafsanjani, 76, is no democrat. Nicknamed "the shark" for his shrewdness, he was president from 1989 to 1997 while Iran executed opponents at home and abroad. His family amassed great wealth through political connections. But he was also a pragmatist who sought to rebuild the Iranian economy after the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War, relaxed social restrictions on the Iranian people, and tried to improve relations with the United States.

In 2005, he decided to run for president again. One of his sons, Mehdi Hashemi, told me at the time that if his father won, he would turn the job of supreme leader into a ceremonial head of state like "the king of England" and let Iran's elected institutions have full authority. Hashemi also warned, presciently, that "if my father doesn't run, all of the country will be under one group, and after that we won't have any free elections."

Needless to say, such comments did not endear Rafsanjani to Khamenei, who threw his support to Ahmadinejad and may have rigged the first round of elections to ensure that his chosen candidate made it to a second round, in which he beat Rafsanjani.

ATTA KENARE/AFP/Getty Images)

 

Barbara Slavin is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and the author of Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies: Iran, the U.S. and the Twisted Path to Confrontation.

ABOO

11:43 PM ET

March 8, 2011

The nickname

"Nicknamed "the shark" for his shrewdness..."

I am really tired of this common mistake! His nickname is "Kooseh", which has two meanings in Farsi: 1. Shark (the animal), 2. A male who lacks facial hair. The second one is intended in the case of Mr. Rafsanjani. See the picture ;)

 

KAMBIZT

8:10 AM ET

March 9, 2011

the Shark

The shark or "Kouseh" in farsi comes from an archaic word in Persian "Kousej" meaning "Hairless". Rafsanjani has not much of beards and by the time of revolution in Iran and when having beards was a symbol of being loyal revolutionary, been labeled as Koosej which in slang conversation in Iran, turned to Kouseh, which is the actual translation of the word: shark.

This article is very well written, the only thing is that the adjective is not suiting the subject:)

 

AFSANEH LEISSNER

11:51 PM ET

March 9, 2011

Shark? Pragmatic? Reformist?

One should not forget that Rafsanjani, Moussavi and Karoubi are parts and parcels of the Islamic Republic. They may not be cut from the same cloth as Ahmadinejad, but the nature of the cloth they are cut from is the same, be it more refined in warp and weft. Their political career has been spent in efforts to foster the Islamic Republic. To lable one "pragmatic," the other "reformist" does not necessarily legitimize them, nor differentiate them as much as some may wish. They have a track record of being abusive of power and position and using it to retrench the principles of the Islmaic Republic at the expense of the rule of law and democracy.
The question is whether the protestors in the streets are fighting for a regime change, i.e. scrapping the constitution of the Islamic Republic which puts Iranians under the tutelage of a bunch of illiterate clergymen, or if the issue is one of personalities. The jury is still out, as the protestors have not yet shown much sign of unity in their demands. Time will tell.

 

DANKAN006

12:34 PM ET

March 11, 2011

just short of ridiculous

Thank you Neo for your comments, while i am not iranian, i follow iranian news often and keep track of different articles, and all i seem to see is nothing but lies and fibs intended for amercian consumption with a neo-con agenda.

When iran has differences they call repression, and when it has a democracy they call it "regime", when they have rallies they call it revolution.

I am sick of the iranian bashing from the american journalists, and this just seems to me they are either out of touch with reality or that they have an intended purpose to disinform the public to sway them against an iranian democratic system that is not perfect but works just like the U.S. has one.

So really i would advise the journalist travel to the country they want to report on and don't meet with everyone, go to the streets and the meet the people and see!

as a canadian, i have to been to Iran 3 times! and they are very friendly and believe it or not people love Ahmadinejad! I have visited at least 6 cities, and wherever i went people speak highly of this man, he is like the Obama of Iran.