Commentary: Iran: The Succeeding Generation

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the countrys Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The recent back-and-forth between Ahmadinejad and Khamenei reflects a deeper generational shift. After three decades of Irans clerical network dominating the political scene, the growth of the Islamic Republics next multiplication of leadersnonclerical, war-veteran technocratsmay well portend larger ramifications for Irans inward and outward orientation.

The common narrative argues that all Iranian leadersespecially given the vetting system that one must go through to enter politicsare cut from the same cloth. He is one of them, or He is like all the rest, has progressively become the mantra of a company and lots of its Diaspora who have grown tired of decades of disappointment. At the moment, though, Ahmadinejad and his cronies have emerged as an unlikely group challenging the status quo in Iran; simply put, when looking at the flight of the Islamic Republic and what it has stood for since its origin in 1979, the current president and his cabinet have done more to stimulate the organization to its effect than any other group, including their reformist predecessors.

This should not be interpreted as an indorsement of Ahmadinejad, or a proposition that he intends to raze the systemfar from it. But continuing to promote the boundaries of what is acceptable by the Islamic Republics own standards is surely a trend worth tracking. It is done this paradigm that the recent rift between Ahmadinejad and Khamenei tells the actual story: Its not about Ahmadinejad as often as what and who he represents: a multiplication of war veterans who felt the Persian power structure had put them aside. This generation increasingly personifies everything that Irans clerical organization is not; they are seen as new and confident; as the very cause for Irans revolutionary survival and at the pith of a dissipating mistrust of the West in the heat of the Iran-Iraq war. Above all, they comprise a belief system predicated on Iranian self-reliance and self-sufficiency. They have remained firm to the Supreme Leader for spiritual reasons, but are hostile towards clerics who grabbed power while they fought to protect Iran from Iraqi aggression. To that end, they think that the Islamic Republic has become corrupted and deviated from the straight way of the 1979 Revolution. Perhaps more than seeking to benefit from their inclusion amongst Irans political elite, this new generation of technocrats seeks to include Iran more fully in the world economy.

Many policymakers and pundits have long predicted a consolidation of the conservative faction in Iran, and this is the latest model that proves the notion incorrect. The recent Ahmadinejad-Khamenei spat personifies a larger truth: Iranian conservatives are as varied and divided as the reformists were during former President Mohammad Khatamis tenure. And given the various power networks in the Islamic Republicclerics, technocrats, merchants, the military, the Revolutionary Guard (current and former, high-level to rank-and-file, and far from monolithic)the integration of force in the men of a single faction is practically impossible. Herein lies the strategy behind the Ahmadinejad camps gambit: these developers (or Abadgaran in Persianthe name of their political faction) are betting they can get the aforementioned generation of Iranians behind them, and they have managed a certain level of success. But yet if the Abadgarans gamble fails to pay off, their repeated challenges to Khamenei and the clerical network he represents have created previously non-existent political space for rival factions from the new generation of political elite to proceed systematically shifting influence to Irans non-clerical power networks.

IN THE beginning, the Abadgaran had the silent approval of the Supreme Leader and, unlike today, intentionally placed Iran in a land of international isolation to systemically eliminate domestic political opponents. Ahmadinejad, who had stumbled upon his anti-Israel remarks, quickly realized their potency and utilized them to effectively kill any aspect of U.S.Iran rapprochement during his first term. With Irans international disputes capturing headlines, its increasing isolation provided space for a new bout of domestic political fratricide. From 2005-2009, despite beneath the surface rifts among conservatives, they worked together to marginalize the reformists. Now that there are no reformist scapegoats left to target, conservative factions are now openly fighting one another. Having seen what happened to the reformists, it is open to all those vying for power this is about political survival and the next of the Islamic Republic.

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