Persian Delight

The Iranian people vote for a reform-minded president. Question is- will Iran's deep state allow him to actually implement reforms?

For my final edition of the summer elections series, I will discuss a recent election that came about under the most dramatic of circumstances.  American officials and governments from allied governments around Eurasia have generally singled out four nations as part of an axis of rogue, destabilizing, and expansionist nations: China, Russia, North Korea, and the Islamic Republic of Iran.  It is the Islamic Republic which shall be my topic of discussion today.  Since 1979 when the Pro-American Shah (King) of Iran was ousted by hardline Islamic clerics with an open mission of the destruction of Israel and regional dominance of the Middle East at the expense of the United States and its allies.  Especially since the ill-fated American invasion of Iraq, Iran has become more powerful than ever and has proven that it is the only Middle Eastern nation with both the will and capabilities to challenge the United States for regional domination.  Domestically, the Iranian revolution has established a shadowy “deep state” of officials close to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps with the muscle to ignore and overrule the will of the Iranian people.  Now, I plan to give you a snapshot of this rotten regime, a dramatic turn, and perhaps a glimmer of hope for the future.

The dramatic turn came on May 19 of this year, Iranian and Azerbaijani officials celebrated the inauguration of a joint venture hydroelectric dam project on the Aras River which would provide electricity to border regions in both Iran and the oil-rich former Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan, which is located on the Caspian Sea.  At this ceremony were Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, as well as Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abollahian.  Following the celebrations, the Iranian delegation departed the site in a convoy of helicopters.  Shortly after the takeoff of an antiquated Bell helicopter (Iran struggles to import modern aircraft due to sanctions) from the newly-operation Giz Galasi dam, the mood aboard the helicopter quickly deteriorated from triumphant to Oh, shit!  As the weather conditions grew foggy, the other helicopters not carrying president Raisi lost both visual and audio contact with Raisi’s helicopter.  Following an intensive hours-long search, the lost helicopter was found.  None of the passengers or crew were alive.

Once it was clear that Raisi, the man aging Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was reportedly grooming to be his successor had ceased to exist in the realm of the living, Iran was forced to organize a presidential election nearly a year before the next regularly scheduled one.  Of course, Iranian “elections” are hardly true exercises of democracy.  If that were true, Khamenei and the ideologues around him would have already been overthrown by the Iranian people.  Anyway, of the 80 candidates who appealed to the Guardian Council of 12 hardline clerics, only 6 were allowed to run- 5 hardline ideologues committed to the Islamic Revolution and physician Masoud Pezeshkian.  A widower of 30 years, Pezeshkian was trained as a cardiologist who became Iran’s health minister in 2001 until 2005 under the moderate administration of Mohammad Khatami.  Unlike the other candidates, Pezeshkian has hinted his opposition to Iran’s harsh morality laws, particularly against women and has spoken of friendly relations with all nations of the world with one obvious exception.  In a stunning upset, Pezeshkian defeated hardliner Saeed Jalili in the July 5th runoff, giving hope that Iran may experience positive political change.

Unfortunately, there are clearly limits to how far Masoud Pezeshkian can go in bringing about change, particularly in the geopolitical realm.  Speaking of that one exception, Pezeshkian has called it the “illegitimate Zionist regime”, a common terminology for Middle Eastern radicals about Israel and has expressed support for Iran’s notorious Axis of Resistance.  This Axis, considered by the Iranian elite as existential to the regime’s survival against Israel and especially the United States, includes various hostile and threatening organizations such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis.  Indeed, it was the presence of these groups who ensured that Iranian foreign policy saw no fundamental changes even after the 2015 nuclear deal, ultimately justifying Donald Trump’s termination of it.  Sadly, while Pezeshkian may want to turn Iran away from the violence and destruction that Supreme Leader Khamenei, the Revolutionary Guard, and other members of the Iranian deep state have wrought on the Middle East, these hardline factions see this strategy not only as the fulfillment of the Islamic Revolution but also critical to their own personal survival.

Despite Pezeshkian’s vow to dismantle the “walls built around the country” and “engage in dialogue with the world and secure (Iran’s) share of the benefits of international cooperation”, Iran’s foreign policy will remain just as aggressive and militant as ever. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guard believe that the United States, Israel, and our global allies (which they view as American and Israeli puppet states) are so fundamentally evil that Iran’s interests are secured only through confrontation and regional domination, rather than Pezeshkian’s vision of cooperation.  Furthermore, while Pezeshkian (and in my opinion the Iranian people) are sick and tired of the militancy and fanaticism of Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guard, the regime’s bloody and barbaric reaction to massive protests against it in 2022 shows how far they are willing to go to maintain their power.  That is why Khamenei will certainly be able block Pezeshkian from negotiating a new nuclear deal with the United States and Iran remains locked in a perilous escalation spiral with Israel with seemingly no way out.  As with the nuclear deal, Pezeshkian has little choice but to take part in the deep state’s conflict with Israel.

So, what happens next?  In my opinion, real change will only come in Iran after the Khamenei’s inevitable death.  Maybe, just maybe, such a vacuum in Tehran would create an opening for a real reformer to finally pull Iran out of the cycle of war and violence it has been so committed to for decades.