Mike Pence Is No Charlie Wilson And Iran's Internal Politics May Not Be What They Seem Through The Prism Of CNN, Let Alone Fox News

M and M

The immutable law of unintended consequences, in this case, short-sighted American meddling in Afghanistan, brought us Osama bin-Laden and 9/11 and, worst of all, the Bush-Cheney assault on American democracy. On one of the plane rides I took recently I watched Charlie Wilson's War for the first time. Wilson, a colorful Texas Democrat had flare and verve but he was as utterly clueless about Afghanistan as the prohibitively uncolorful Mike Pence-- who has neither verve nor flare-- is about Iran.

With GOP potential presidential contenders dropping off the face of the map weekly, the narrow-minded, priggish and extraordinarily churlish Pence has tossed his unlikely hat into the ring. He's #3 in the House Republican hierarchy and he embodies the GOP strategy of obstructionism and the "Just Say No" mentality. He's even less in tune with what America is looking for in a national leader than John McCain was and his presence in the race will only serve to make a bland and visionless Mitt Romney appear to be a political giant by comparison. He may appear to have more intellectual heft than Sarah Palin but... appearances can be very deceptive.

Most Americans have never heard of Mike Pence and they're not missing much. But in the last few weeks he made himself a champion of his own disconnected definition of Iranian "freedom," irresponsibly decrying President Obama's unwillingness to put an American imprinteur on the dangerous political upheaval in Tehran. Other than being a thorn in the side of Obama, Pence didn't seen to know quite what he wanted-- unless it was the blood of innocent Iranians flowing in the streets. A friend of mine stationed in Baghdad turned me on the Stratfor's Global Intelligence Report. It may occasionally get things wrong but it speaks with a lot more authority than a clown like Mike Pence and a recent edition explained how the real struggle in Iran is very different from what fools like Pence thought they were seeing. That struggle was never really about us and never really about the liberalization of the detestable theocratic/military dictatorship there. "Rather, it has been about the role of the clergy-- particularly the old-guard clergy-- in Iranian life, and the future of particular personalities among this clergy." It's ground Mike Pence knows nothing about and has no feel for-- not that that would ever cause him to think before he speaks.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ran his re-election campaign against the old clerical elite, charging them with corruption, luxurious living and running the state for their own benefit rather than that of the people. He particularly targeted Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, an extremely senior leader, and his family. Indeed, during the demonstrations, Rafsanjani’s daughter and four other relatives were arrested, held and then released a day later.

Rafsanjani represents the class of clergy that came to power in 1979. He served as president from 1989-1997, but Ahmadinejad defeated him in 2005. Rafsanjani carries enormous clout within the system as head of the regime’s two most powerful institutions-- the Expediency Council, which arbitrates between the Guardian Council and parliament, and the Assembly of Experts, whose powers include oversight of the supreme leader. Forbes has called him one of the wealthiest men in the world. Rafsanjani, in other words, remains at the heart of the post-1979 Iranian establishment.

Ahmadinejad expressly ran his recent presidential campaign against Rafsanjani, using the latter’s family’s vast wealth to discredit Rafsanjani along with many of the senior clerics who dominate the Iranian political scene. It was not the regime as such that he opposed, but the individuals who currently dominate it. Ahmadinejad wants to retain the regime, but he wants to repopulate the leadership councils with clerics who share his populist values and want to revive the ascetic foundations of the regime. The Iranian president constantly contrasts his own modest lifestyle with the opulence of the current religious leadership.

Recognizing the threat Ahmadinejad represented to him personally and to the clerical class he belongs to, Rafsanjani fired back at Ahmadinejad, accusing him of having wrecked the economy. At his side were other powerful members of the regime, including Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani, who has made no secret of his antipathy toward Ahmadinejad and whose family links to the Shiite holy city of Qom give him substantial leverage. The underlying issue was about the kind of people who ought to be leading the clerical establishment. The battlefield was economic: Ahmadinejad’s charges of financial corruption versus charges of economic mismanagement leveled by Rafsanjani and others.

When Ahmadinejad defeated Mir Hossein Mousavi on the night of the election, the clerical elite saw themselves in serious danger. The margin of victory Ahmadinejad claimed might have given him the political clout to challenge their position. Mousavi immediately claimed fraud, and Rafsanjani backed him up. Whatever the motives of those in the streets, the real action was a knife fight between Ahmadinejad and Rafsanjani. By the end of the week, Khamenei decided to end the situation. In essence, he tried to hold things together by ordering the demonstrations to halt while throwing a bone to Rafsanjani and Mousavi by extending a probe into the election irregularities and postponing a partial recount by five days.

The key to understanding the situation in Iran is realizing that the past weeks have seen not an uprising against the regime, but a struggle within the regime. Ahmadinejad is not part of the establishment, but rather has been struggling against it, accusing it of having betrayed the principles of the Islamic Revolution. The post-election unrest in Iran therefore was not a matter of a repressive regime suppressing liberals (as in Prague in 1989), but a struggle between two Islamist factions that are each committed to the regime, but opposed to each other.

The demonstrators certainly included Western-style liberalizing elements, but they also included adherents of senior clerics who wanted to block Ahmadinejad’s re-election. And while Ahmadinejad undoubtedly committed electoral fraud to bulk up his numbers, his ability to commit unlimited fraud was blocked, because very powerful people looking for a chance to bring him down were arrayed against him.

The situation is even more complex because it is not simply a fight between Ahmadinejad and the clerics, but also a fight among the clerical elite regarding perks and privileges-- and Ahmadinejad is himself being used within this infighting. The Iranian president’s populism suits the interests of clerics who oppose Rafsanjani; Ahmadinejad is their battering ram. But as Ahmadinejad increases his power, he could turn on his patrons very quickly. In short, the political situation in Iran is extremely volatile, just not for the reason that the media portrayed.

Rafsanjani is an extraordinarily powerful figure in the establishment who clearly sees Ahmadinejad and his faction as a mortal threat. Ahmadinejad’s ability to survive the unified opposition of the clergy, election or not, is not at all certain. But the problem is that there is no unified clergy. The supreme leader is clearly trying to find a new political balance while making it clear that public unrest will not be tolerated. Removing “public unrest” (i.e., demonstrations) from the tool kits of both sides may take away one of Rafsanjani’s more effective tools. But ultimately, it actually could benefit him. Should the internal politics move against the Iranian president, it would be Ahmadinejad-- who has a substantial public following-- who would not be able to have his supporters take to the streets.

The question for the rest of the world is simple: Does it matter who wins this fight? We would argue that the policy differences between Ahmadinejad and Rafsanjani are minimal and probably would not affect Iran’s foreign relations. This fight simply isn’t about foreign policy.

Rafsanjani has frequently been held up in the West as a pragmatist who opposes Ahmadinejad’s radicalism. Rafsanjani certainly opposes Ahmadinejad and is happy to portray the Iranian president as harmful to Iran, but it is hard to imagine significant shifts in foreign policy if Rafsanjani’s faction came out on top. Khamenei has approved Iran’s foreign policy under Ahmadinejad, and Khamenei works to maintain broad consensus on policies. Ahmadinejad’s policies were vetted by Khamenei and the system that Rafsanjani is part of. It is possible that Rafsanjani secretly harbors different views, but if he does, anyone predicting what these might be is guessing.

Rafsanjani is a pragmatist in the sense that he systematically has accumulated power and wealth. He seems concerned about the Iranian economy, which is reasonable because he owns a lot of it. Ahmadinejad’s entire charge against him is that Rafsanjani is only interested in his own economic well-being. These political charges notwithstanding, Rafsanjani was part of the 1979 revolution, as were Ahmadinejad and the rest of the political and clerical elite. It would be a massive mistake to think that any leadership elements have abandoned those principles.

Sounds like just the kind of character someone like Pence, who probably wasn't even aware that Rafasanjani was president nor that Mousavi, as prime minister, was no friend of the U.S. by any stretch of the imagination, would get behind-- at least in domestic Indiana politics. Nor would someone like Pence care. He's just a Party of No hack-- in it to make some trouble and to let the chips fall where they may.

Reuters-- as well as other western mass media outlets-- seems to arbitrarily assign political positions to members of the regime. Ex-President Khatami criticizes the election and, in their world, it makes him a "moderate" and "pro-reform," just like Hezbollah's best friend Mousavi. I don't expect our dumbed down media to go into any really serious analysis but at least they can just try remembering for a few seconds while they turn out this drivel that the world really isn't as U.S.-centric as they seem to believe it is.

Meanwhile, Stratfor makes 3 overall points: "there was no democratic uprising of any significance in Iran... there is a major political crisis within the Iranian political elite, the outcome of which probably tilts toward Ahmadinejad but remains uncertain... there will be no change in the substance of Iran’s foreign policy, regardless of the outcome of this fight. The fantasy of a democratic revolution overthrowing the Islamic Republic-- and thus solving everyone’s foreign policy problems a la the 1991 Soviet collapse-- has passed," regardless of what bozos like Mike Pence, John McCain and Marco Rubio think.

That means that Obama, as the primary player in Iranian foreign affairs, must now define an Iran policy-- particularly given Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s meeting in Washington with U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell this Monday. Obama has said that nothing that has happened in Iran makes dialogue impossible, but opening dialogue is easier said than done. The Republicans consistently have opposed an opening to Iran; now they are joined by Democrats, who oppose dialogue with nations they regard as human rights violators. Obama still has room for maneuver, but it is not clear where he thinks he is maneuvering. The Iranians have consistently rejected dialogue if it involves any preconditions. But given the events of the past weeks, and the perceptions about them that have now been locked into the public mind, Obama isn’t going to be able to make many concessions.