“An Important Development In Iran”
TEHRAN, Iran - Former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani was picked Tuesday to head a key clerical body empowered with choosing or dismissing the country’s supreme leader, state media reported, in a vote seen as a setback for hard-liners in Iran’s ruling establishment.
Rafsanjani, long a major player in Iran’s complex political scene who already heads a powerful government body called the Expediency Council, received 41 votes to become the chairman of the Assembly of Experts.
The assembly is a group of 86 senior clerics charged with monitoring Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and choosing his successor. The Expediency Council arbitrates between legislators and another influential body called the Guardian Council, a hard-line constitutional watchdog.
The 73-year-old former president is considered more moderate than current hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Rafsanjani defeated Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, an extremist within the hard-line camp who received 34 votes for the Assembly of Experts leadership, state-run television reported.
Analysts said Tuesday’s vote showed that moderate conservatives were gaining ground in Iran, where there is growing discontent directed at ruling hard-liners over rising tensions with the West and a worsening economy.
While Jannati is among the proponents of the theory that the legitimacy of Iran’s clerics to rule the country is derived from God, Rafsanjani is believed to side with pro-democracy reformers who believe the government’s authority is derived from popular elections.
“Rafsanjani’s election is yet another no to the fossilized extremists such as Jannati and Mesbah Yazdi,” said political analyst Hamid Reza Shokouhi, referring to Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi Mesbah Yazdi, who is Ahmadinejad’s spiritual mentor.
Analysts also said Rafsanjani’s election could pose a challenge to Khamenei, who as supreme leader has final say on matters of state.
When he was first chosen as supreme leader, Khamenei found himself in the shadow of then-President Rafsanjani. But Khamenei has since increased his power, and in recent years, Khamenei has allowed hard- liners to undermine Rafsanjani’s influence, part of his efforts to bring the former president under his control.
Analyst Saeed Leilaz noted that Rafsanjani has spoken lately of greater Assembly supervision over Khamenei. “The outside world must know that Rafsanjani’s election today is an important development in Iran,” he said.
Rafsanjani has long been an elusive inside player in Iran’s clerical leadership.
He has supported a policy of improving relations with the West including the United States. Though he backs the line rejecting a suspension of Iran’s uranium enrichment program, he has shown a willingness to compromise in backroom negotiations on the nuclear program.
On Tuesday, Rafsanjani said that perhaps the Assembly would be a more active player on the national scene, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency.
“If the Experts Assembly wants to play a more active role in the country’s affairs, it has the religious and legal justification to do that. … Perhaps the assembly will do so in its upcoming term,” IRNA quoted Rafsanjani as saying just before the vote.
Rafsanjani succeeds Ayatollah Ali Meshkini, the former Assembly of Experts head who died in July after a long illness. Rafsanjani, who served as president from 1989-1997, is also considered an opponent to Ahmadinejad and lost to him the 2005 presidential runoff.
The Assembly of Experts is seen as a pillar of Iran’s Islamic regime because of its lofty duties: monitoring the all-powerful supreme leader and picking a successor after his death. But the assembly has not published a single public report about its monitoring of Iran’s supreme leader in the past three decades.
Rafsanjani, who himself has achieved the high Shiite clerical rank of ayatollah, had hinted in the past that the assembly has to publish reports to respect the public and inform the nation of its activities.
The body’s real clout only kicks in after the supreme leader is gone—a sort of Iranian version of the Vatican’s College of Cardinals when they gather to pick a new pope.
The assembly has done that only once since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. In 1989, it picked Khamenei to succeed his late mentor, the Islamic Revolution patriarch Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
(AP)
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Assembly of Experts eh? No doubt they also graduated from Tehran Community College. Change in Iran, will take much more than this. The last time Rafsanjani was in power…did you see any change in Hizbollah activities in Lebanon or against Israel? No you didn’t. This guy is just Ahmedinajacket-light.
September 4th, 2007 at 7:52 am“Expediency Council” LOL! We sure hope so. And if not, we’re here to help.
September 4th, 2007 at 7:53 amMarines on their 3-5th tour might be a little interested if we set up for war with Iran. I see the Dems didn’t limit the War Powers Act yet so it could happen.
September 4th, 2007 at 10:02 amGreetings:
Dan & Infidel…
Don’t know much about Iran, do you? Unlike Iraq, Iran has a more unified middle class and social structure (. Political and social pressure might do to Iran what Cruise missiles did to Iraq.
Westerners forget that Iranians are Persians and Iraqis are Arabs.
That might be lost on the low brow crowd that predominates these posts but to those few who…consider, perchance think, this development means a great deal more than a similar one in Iraq.
There are more pro America Iranians then there are pro American Iraqis. Iran has one thing that Iraq doesn’t have…a very sizable Jewish population (who may mostly beoutside Iran now but when they move back you will see things happen economically and politically).
The people of Iran are more likely to throw out the hardliners, given half the chance, then the war weary, traumatized, beaten half to death Iraqis.
I await the references to my deviant sexuality with grim amusement…
Tim Roesch
September 4th, 2007 at 11:06 amCommand Private Major
Tent pegs for sale or loan
[…] “An Important Development In Iran” — Pat Dollard […]
September 4th, 2007 at 1:19 pmTim- this development is good news of course but Iran is not even close to an internal revolution. The US or Israel will be forced to do something about Iran’s nuclear program before Iranians muster the willpower to do it themselves.
September 4th, 2007 at 1:27 pmGreetings:
I agree Evestay but I am saying Iran is closer than most think. The intelligensia of Iran grows tired of the ham fisted, strutting idealists every day.
Given the opportunity I think a majority of Iranians would rise up IF they felt they would be backed up. In Iran, those with the guns make the rules.
Tim Roesch
September 4th, 2007 at 3:04 pmCommand Private Major
Tent pegs for sale or loan
Hey Highbrow tent peg salesman, Iraq was beaten into the dangerous mess by Saddam, Now the regime in iran is increasing its violent suppression of the population. Not sure the ‘enlightened middle class’ of iran will overcome the regime before they get nukes, so for my and my childrens sake I prefer that we wack em now. This is just a different mask trying to hide evil.
September 4th, 2007 at 3:17 pmTim… Get of your high horse and listen to what other people are saying. You might lean something. If D. & I. want to poke fun at Iran, let them. I doubt that any of us have a real clear understanding of what is going on in Iran. As you say, it might be perestroika and glasnost in there on the other hand it could be still 1979. Maybe it’s a little of both.
All I am saying is that, if you know so much, you should write an article about it and see if Pat will post it for you. I wouldn’t mind hearing a little more about what people think is going on in Iran.
Thanks
September 4th, 2007 at 3:18 pmI was just looking at the CIA’s WFB and noticed that only half the people in Iran are Persian and that it has almost 3 times the population as Iraq. I have some friends that are coming back from Iran and if they have any good stories, I’ll relate them here. I need to learn more about this place.
September 4th, 2007 at 3:24 pmSorry, I swear this is the last post on this thread.
http://www.michaeltotten.com/
Mr. Totten has written an interesting piece that I think would shed some light on the subject of Iran and revelations. It appears in the October issue of Reason Magazine.
September 4th, 2007 at 3:34 pmTimmy-meboy:
Go on back to your mommy’s apron strings. You’re out of your league. The only power in Iran rests in the religious hierarchy. The people in Iran haven’t the power to do anything. The Iranians may be tired of the ayatollahs, but they do nothing to change things.
The revolutionary guards enforce religious rule..and they have the guns…not the people.
Rafsanjani, is no better than Ahmedinajacket. He may look like a moderate, but he will continue to carry out Hizbollah’s agenda, just as he did when he was in power the last time.
Little man, learn this lesson, you can put a nice dress on a pig, but it is still a pig.
The Iranian people will never overthrow their regime so long as the Revolutionary Guards have enforcement power.
But dream on little man…
September 4th, 2007 at 3:48 pmTimmy-Roachboy:
Addendum:
Westerners forget that Iranians are Persians and Iraqis are Arabs.”
No shit sherlock. You enlightened no one here.
“That might be lost on the low brow crowd that predominates these posts but to those few who…consider, perchance think, this development means a great deal more than a similar one in Iraq.”
Low-brow crowd? You mean like you diaper-baby?
“There are more pro America Iranians then there are pro American Iraqis. Iran has one thing that Iraq doesn’t have…a very sizable Jewish population (who may mostly beoutside Iran now but when they move back you will see things happen economically and politically).”
No. The Jewish population in Iraq is under a pogrom at the moment as they are in Iraq. The Jewish population has been purged in both countries. Those that are left are in hiding.
Iraqi Mulslims and Iranian hard-core Muslims have no problem killing Dhimi Jews and Christians.
Nothing will change politically, unless the Iranians get outside help. Whether the average Iranian likes the West or not…It doesn’t matter. They don’t have either the guns, the motivation or the power to affect any positive change…no matter how far in the tank that their economy goes.
“The people of Iran are more likely to throw out the hardliners, given half the chance, then the war weary, traumatized, beaten half to death Iraqis.”
No they won’t. Iranians aren’t faced with death from AQI or JAM every day. In Iraq it is either fight and live or take it in the ass and die.
Iranians don’t have that worry, so long as they keep their union cards and follow their government laws. Yeah they have union cards. It’s similar to Nazi Party cards. No card, no job.
September 4th, 2007 at 3:58 pmGrumpy:
This 12yr old Timmyboy doesn’t know shit. I doubt that Pat would let a puke kid who’s been smoking dope with the libs to post shit here other than his maggot-ass comments.
But only until Pat is tired of his punk ass.
September 4th, 2007 at 4:00 pm