TEHRAN: The prospect of conflict in neighbouring Iraq has exposed political divisions in Iran where Saddam Hussein and the United States are viewed with equal suspicion.
“Our main worry is what America wants to do after toppling Saddam,” an Iranian policy-maker said, meaning Iraq’s political future, rather than any fear Iran could be next in line for “regime change”.
But apart from fretting about instability in Iraq and the region that could flow from the Iraqi leader’s demise, Iranian leaders must also calculate how the US-Iraqi confrontation will affect their own complex and protracted political tussles.
When Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri came to Tehran this month in an apparently futile quest for support, conservative members of parliament condemned any attack on Muslim Iraq. But some reformers and newspapers questioned why the government should be receiving Sabri at all, viewing him as a representative of a doomed and distasteful dictatorship.
A subsequent visit by British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw evoked similarly stark disagreements among rival factions which control different power centres in the Islamic republic.
“We were criticized internally over both the Sabri and Straw visits,” a Foreign Ministry official wryly acknowledged.
Diplomats say Iran must speak with one voice on the Iraq crisis if it is to avoid more setbacks like its inclusion in US President George W. Bush’s “axis of evil” — despite its efforts to stabilize and rebuild post-Taliban Afghanistan.
INTERNAL STRUGGLE: Yet maintaining public unity may be difficult, if not impossible, given Iran’s political flux, in which reformist President Mohammad Khatami has a huge electoral mandate to promote freer, more open and less corrupt government, but little power to satisfy the aspirations of his followers.
The conservatives, generally favoured by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, control the key powers of the judiciary, security services and largely unelected constitutional bodies such as the Guardian Council and Expediency Council.
Khatami is currently pushing two bills that would empower him to remove judges from office and deprive the Guardian Council of its authority to vet candidates for parliament.
The initiative, already meeting fierce resistance from the conservatives, could make or break Khatami’s efforts to build a genuine “Islamic democracy” using the legacy of Iran’s revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
Conflict in Iraq could erupt as this constitutional tug-of-war plays out in the coming weeks and months, and analysts say turmoil next door could interrupt or even abort the process.
“The hardliners are looking for an excuse to declare a state of emergency,” one pro-reform analyst said.
Pretexts for this could easily emerge if, for instance, Iraqi Kurds made a violent grab for autonomy, perhaps encouraging Iranian Kurds to do the same.
Another security threat could be lightly armed opposition Mujahideen Khalq fighters now based in Iraq. In any case, a US invasion of Iraq is likely to highlight Iran’s internal inconsistencies, a European diplomat said.
ANGLING FOR FAVOUR: Former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani might portray himself as an element of stability who could liberalize the economy and allow some social freedom while stifling prospects for real democracy.
But Rafsanjani suffered humiliation in elections in 2000 and the Bush administration, perhaps convinced Iran’s whole system of clerical rule will come to grief anyway, may see little point in putting its weight behind him.—Reuters