American Enterprise Institute

May 19, 2008

[Edited transcript from audio tapes]

9:00 a.m.	Registration
9:15	Introduction:	Danielle Pletka, AEI
9:30		Panel I: The Ahmadinejad Presidency and Its Impact on Iranian Civil and Political Society
	Presenters:	Mohebat Ahdiyyih, Open Source Center Ali Alfoneh, AEI and the University of Copenhagen
		Hormoz Hekmat, Foundation for Iranian Studies
		Tom Parker, Iran Human Rights Documentation Center
	Moderator:	Michael Rubin, AEI
10:45		Panel II: Iranian Foreign Policymaking and the West
	Presenters:	Patrick Clawson, Washington Institute for Near East Policy
		Danielle Pletka, AEI
		Alex Vatanka, Jane’s Information Group
	Moderator:	Michael Rubin, AEI
12:00 p.m.		Luncheon
12:45		Panel III: The Transformation and Rise of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
	Presenters:	Ali Alfoneh, AEI and the University of Copenhagen
		Kenneth Katzman, Congressional Research Service
	Discussant:	Mohsen Sazegara
	Moderator:	Danielle Pletka, AEI
2:00	Adjournment

Proceedings:

Panel I: The Ahmadinejad Presidency and Its Impact on Iranian Civil and Political Society

Danielle Pletka:  Good morning, everybody.  Let me invite our panelists, please come sit down.  I'm just going to make a brief introduction.

Good morning, everybody.  I’m Danielle Pletka.  I’m the vice president for Foreign and Defense Policy Studies here at AEI.  I’m happy to see everybody here on this very nice Monday morning.  We have the windows open for once, which is very lively.  The title of this conference today is “Iran in Three Dimensions” and it is a title that has some logic in our own minds although it may not actually have any logic in anybody else’s.

Iran is in the pages of the newspapers everyday, but what do we talk about?  We talk about the latest utterances of Ahmadinejad; we talk about the fact that he called Israel a stinking corpse; we talk about centrifuges; we talk about Iran’s nuclear weapons program; we talk about proliferation; we talk about support for terrorism; we talk about Iran and Iraq.  But actually, we do not spend a great deal of time talking about Iran - what the country itself is like, what Ahmadinejad’s presidency has meant, what the rise of the Revolutionary Guard has meant. 

And so some time ago we thought to ourselves that the right questions to ask were, in fact these - that, perhaps, Iran internally will help inform not only where Iran is going in terms of its own foreign policy but it will help inform us about how to approach the problem with a little bit more creativity, certainly, than we have seen to date and, hopefully, perhaps, with a little bit more effectiveness.

So what we have today before us are three panels on these questions.  The first is to look at the question of the Ahmadinejad presidency itself and its impact on Iranian civil and political society.  So I’m not going to spend any more time telling you what we are going to be doing; instead, I’m going to move over here and turn to our panelists for a discussion of all of these issues and more, I hope.  Thank you all for being here.

Not quite sure why I did that.  I could have done it from here.

Well, today our panelists -– I’m going to go in alphabetical order for our first panel.  Mohebat Ahdiyyih -- and you are going to have to forgive my awful Persian pronunciation.  Mohebat serves as the senior Iran analyst at the Open Source Center where he focuses on questions of Shiite doctrine.  Ali Alfoneh is a researcher-in-residence at the American Enterprise Institute, and a doctoral candidate in political science at the University of Copenhagen.  Hormoz Hekmat is the editor of Iran Nameh, a quarterly journal published by the Foundation for Iranian Studies.  And Tom Parker is the executive director of the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center.

Now, normally speaking, I would have talked to our panelists and asked them in what order they would like to speak.  Do you have a preference or shall I just go down the line starting with -- 

Male Voice:  I have a preference.

Danielle Pletka:  -- yes.

Male Voice:  I would like to talk last.

Danielle Pletka:  Everybody always wants to talk last.  See, you got it in first, though.  So, Mohebat, if I can ask you to lead off, that would be terrific.

Mohebat Ahdiyyih:  Good morning, everybody.  Like on the way coming here driving, the traffic from Northern Virginia -- I thought what would be the one thing I should say first at this distinguished assemblage here?  I thought, what is the latest thing that has happened in Iran.

And you may have heard that the entire leadership of the largest religious community in Iran has been arrested and detained within the past few days and seven top leaders of the Baha’i Faith in Iran.  And, of course, that is an urgent issue from a human rights point of view.  And I’m sure Tom, when he deals with the human rights, that may be one of the subjects he addresses. 

But I thought we need to be conscious of these developments that greatly affect the future of Iran - the issues of human rights of students, women, minorities.  That is a very important consideration although, most of the time, our main concern is, apparently, larger issues such as nuclear issue and Iraq and Iran developments.  But we should not forget about the people of Iran who are suffering.

There is a story; of course, most probably fiction, not true, but it goes back to the early 19th century when the wars between Iran and Russia were going on.  And as Iran was being defeated again and again, someone went to the Chief Minister and said, “I have designed a super gun that we can shoot Saint Petersburg from Tehran.”  Now, we are talking about 1800; of course, such a thing is an impossibility.  Of course, Chief Minister laughed and said, “Well, okay, but it is not possible to do that.”  “It was my patriotic duty to inform you of that.  Now, if you do not do it and we are defeated, you are responsible; not me anymore because I told you.”

So he thought, “Well, maybe he has actually designed something that would work.”  So he consulted with the king and the king ordered that, “Give him all the resources he needs to build the super gun.”  So he built the gun and on the appointed time, all the dignitaries, officials all gathered for this gun to be fired so that it can wipe out Saint Petersburg.  And, of course, guns in 19th century -- lots of dust and smoke when you fire it and that is exactly what happened.  And as the air was filled with dust and smoke, they could hear his voice saying, “If the gun has done this here, imagine what it has done in Saint Petersburg.”

So a lot of what we hear these days from Iran and the statements and the talk and this tough language sometimes should be looked at in that sense, that is, to create a lot of dust and smoke right there.  And they are saying, “Imagine what is happening in Washington as a result of this here.”  But we have to -– since we are going to talk about President Ahmadinejad in this panel, I have to say that -– I mean, a lot of things have been said about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, mostly unflattering.  But there is one good thing about him and that is that he is almost keeping his promises that he made during his campaign, and that by itself represents a certain degree of honesty.  Although people may not like that but he has done that.

He said when he was running for President that he does not care about diplomatic norms and language.  He said he wants to just freely speak what is on his mind and he has done that.  In fact, to the extent that he is so uninhibited in his speech that we repeatedly hear other officials who cannot necessarily come out and challenge him directly because -– I mean, when he says things about Israel, they just cannot come out and say, “No, no, you are wrong”.  They do not want him to say that so they use different types of ways to try to convince him not to speak so directly.  One of them said, “Well, why do we have to say this?  We all believe in that, but we do not have to talk about it.”

This is the type of reaction that comes out of Iran when we hear comments by other officials about Ahmadinejad.  But it is still a refreshing thing for an Iranian leader to talk his mind, considering the convoluted language used by Rafsanjani and Khatami and this philosophizing and this almost deceptive language that is often used by them, although they look more pragmatic and more moderate and more reformist but a lot of it may be just the language.

Now, what Khomeini himself said during his time, the founder of the Islamic Revolution, over the years they actually expunged it from the language.  They were not repeating what Khomeini had said during Rafsanjani and Khatami’s time.  So Ahmadinejad has brought that back, too, because another thing he said during his campaign was that the revolution has deviated from its right path and he wants to put it back on the path that Imam Khomeini wanted it to be.

For example, for a long time we had not heard that Khomeini had said, “The road to Jerusalem passes through Karbala.”  Now, that was not repeated much until Ahmadinejad came on the scene and we hear that a lot.  In fact, you see the consequences of that with what is happening in Iraq.  So going beyond language is the policy that is being also affected and influenced by what Ahmadinejad has brought to the scene.

One of the aspects of what he means about revolution being deviated is that those who were true inheritors of the revolution were deprived of the fruits of revolution.  So he wants to give them the fruits of revolution.  So we see a rise in IRGC, Basij groups that are religiously extremist, Madojan [phonetic], the term that is used these days to explain the kind of lay clerics, pseudo-clerics who have appeared on the scene very much supported by Ahmadinejad as a counterweight to the established clerical system in Iran which has caused a lot of concern for the traditional clerics.

Now, because of Ahmadinejad’s statements and actions, something else has happened in the Islamic Republic and if they do not fix it, let’s say next year by having someone else become president -- someone like Qalibaf is being talked about, mayor of Tehran, and that is a fact that he tipped the balance that existed in the Islamic Republic for years.  The politics in Iran -- these factions are at each other’s throat.  And so at the Supreme Leader level and the council around him, they had been able to balance these factions so that neither one of them could become too powerful.  Now that balance is kind of lost a little bit.  Now, the question is could they reestablish that balance or not?

There are efforts along that line.  Larijani gets into election of Majlis and is now in the Majlis trying to maybe replace the Haddad-Adel as their speaker and become a counterweight to Ahmadinejad, and maybe next year become president.  Of course, Qalibaf has the same idea but it is not clear whether it can be fixed at this point because it in some ways has gone too far with the power acquired by the most hard-line elements that exist there.

The situation, in one word, is unstable in Iran; it is not stable.  In fact, the future of Islamic Republic is very much now in the balance.  And if they can - and they are probably thinking about it - if they can fix that and bring back stability, they may survive.  Otherwise, the way things are as it continues, it is not going to survive.  In fact, the situation is so bad that President Khatami, no one less than the former president of the country, said that Iranian hardliners are worse than Al-Qaeda [phonetic].  I do not know how many of you saw that statement, but he has dealt with them and he knows who they are, and he called them worse than Al-Qaeda.  It is that bad in Iran.

Now, to understand how confusing -- of course, you are going to tell me when I have to stop, right?  You will tell me, okay.  Maybe a couple of minutes to answer this, thank you, yes.

To understand how unstable and confusing the situation is, I’m going to refer to one episode that happened in April.  There was an explosion in a religious center, a complex of mosques and they call it Hosseinieh where, in fact, people gather Saturday nights in large numbers - up to 10,000 sometimes - and they mourn the martyrdom of Imam Hussein and they attack the Baha’is - a regular feature of these gatherings - and there was an explosion there.  Now, immediately after the explosion happened, the news agencies in Iran, backed by international news agencies, reported that it was either Baha’is or the Wahabis who did the blast in this place. 

So the people who were running the center and maybe some other authorities who were in cahoots with them thought maybe they can use this to start a new kind of surge of persecution of Baha’is.  Now, then it did not work because, I mean, Baha’is do not do things like that and Wahabi is kind of in Shiraz -- not that concerned about the mosque in Shiraz.  So different stories emerged over time about what has happened there.  No less than an institution than the National Security Council of Iran said that it was not a terrorist attack; it was an accident.  Backed by all main officials in Iran.

Now, for a while, it went on but the websites and the blogs, those who cover in Iran -- you may have noticed what was going on there, the comments people were putting there about what a lie that is; everybody knows it was a bomb.  How could National Security Council and everybody says it was not?  So they had to change it.  So now they have come out that it was actually a terrorist attack.  Just to show you how -– just one episode how it is being handled.  It was a terrorist attack that was sponsored by the British and Americans and that is where we are now. 

And the monarchy is, by the way, very involved, too, meanwhile.  And a few little details are coming out everyday and as the Ministry of Intelligence and Interior provides these fantastic updates about what actually happened there -- and so at this point, the idea is that they were terrorists and they are going to be tried and hanged right there at the place where the blast took place.  Now those poor people -- who knows whose names were drawn to be there, sacrificed for this?  Hopefully, they would get help from somewhere.

So that is how it is.  There is no agreement on even a small issue like that compared to big issues, leave alone larger topics that Iran has to deal with.  Now, as I said, the picture could change in Iran if someone else is elected president.  But we have –- when we talk about negotiations here in this country, it is kind of -– those who are familiar with the way Iranian media reports on the statements by Iranian officials, there is almost a smile on their face - I have seen that - because the question is, negotiate with whom?  Who are you going to negotiate with?  There is not a single person you can really negotiate if you pick up just one or one faction that you would be able to get anywhere. 

There are many factions.  If you can get them all in one place and have -– by the way, negotiating with the President of Iran is not -– I mean, President is not the ultimate power in Iran.  So if you really want to negotiate, you have to negotiate with the Supreme Leader.  That is the one you have to negotiate with.  So the fact that Obama and Ahmadinejad may get one day together and talk to each other, that is fine; nice.  But that is not going to get anywhere.  You have to sit down with the Supreme Leader and that may not be enough because the Supreme Leader himself is just there to balance between the factions.  It does not mean necessarily he has the decisive final power to make decisions. 

You have to get the reformist in the room, the hardliners in the room, representatives of clerics in the room, more than anyone else, the IRGC leadership in the room.  And if you get them all in one place and they all agree on one thing, still, more probably it is not going to happen but that may be the first step in successful negotiation when it comes to that.

Now, of course, Iranians are very much futuristic.  You know, it is a great nation, really.  It is sad that they are in this state that they are.  At some periods of history, they have done great contribution to civilization and it is on the mind of Iranians.  You see that on the mind of Ahmadinejad, but I’m going to explain how he wants to accomplish that, to bring back that past glory for Iran.

Most Iranians, through reading the poetry and writings of philosophers and all of that, not only know what Iran’s past was but also have read about promises about Iran’s future.  Poets like Ferdowsi, like Hafez, like Rumi all have talked about this great and brilliant future awaiting Iran. 

Now, the way many see the future is through the Hidden Imam and nuclear weapons, unfortunately.  And that is not really what those poets meant.  What those poets meant was a peaceful approach to resolving problems of the world; what they meant was unity, unification of mankind.  What they meant was collaboration between all nations and religions, not dominance; not becoming the dominant power or regional power there.  And the Hidden Imam issue -- I know people think that is just a side show but it is becoming very important in Iran; practically everyday, they are talking about it now.

The issue of Hidden Imam and the nuclear issue are merging in Iran.  So that means the greatness that Ahmadinejad wants for Iran comes with the Hidden Imam now represented -– I mean, usually the Supreme Leader is representative of Hidden Imam but in this case, almost by Ahmadinejad and his government.  And then with nuclear weapons combined, that would bring back the past glory.

Now, I got the sign there that I have to stop, but I just wanted to say that all of these issues are affecting the Arab world relations with Iran - the economy and the election recently we saw.  And that was inconclusive, by the way, this election; again, divisions among the hardliners in the Majlis.  It is not clear what is going to happen but I have to say that -- end actually with that. 

When Ahmadinejad was on pilgrimage recently in Mecca, he gave a speech that was not -– by the way, many of the speeches of Ahmadinejad are not reported by Iranian TV and radio.  For those who follow that, you will not find it there and because -- I mean it may look surprising but the leadership of state media in Iran does not like Ahmadinejad.  It does not mean they are all in one camp; they are different factions.  And so they do not report all of his speeches.  You have to check in websites and different places to find many of his speeches.

So he gave his speech in Mecca, out of all places, recently, to Iranian pilgrims in Farsi language.  And he said, “All these pilgrims that are here, it is of no meaning if you do not believe in Lord of the Age, if you do not believe in the Hidden Imam.  So, essentially, over a billion Sunnis -- he just wiped them out like that; that they are not true believers because they do not believe in Hidden Imam.  He did -– he has done the same thing recently in front of like a Gulf Cooperation Council and other places when he said actually a prayer for appearance of Hidden Imam.  Can you imagine with all these Arab Sunni leaders there?

So that is very much on the mind of Ahmadinejad and it goes back, as I said, to the fact that he wants to restore the greatness of Iran and he actually thinks it will happen in that language and in that manner.  Thank you.

Danielle Pletka:  Thank you very much.

Tom Parker:  That is going to be a hard act to follow.  I thought I would very quickly give you a little bit of a sort of tour d’horizon of the human rights situation inside Iran and then offer you some thoughts on some of the difficulties that the human rights organizations that take an interest in Iran face as they try and gain leverage over the Iranian regime to try and address these issues.

The situation inside Iran is typical of many authoritarian regimes.  There is a wide group of minority -- a wide range of minority groups that find themselves discriminated against inside the Islamic Republic.  We have talked already today about the Baha’i; a very alarming situation is developing regarding the leadership of the Baha’i community.  Inside Iran, at the moment, it is not the first time that by any stretch of the imagination this community has been targeted.  In the past the Islamic Republic has executed three different iterations of the Baha’i leadership since coming to power, the last I think in 1983. 

So it has been a while before we have seen roundups of this nature but it is not a huge leap to think that the seven individuals who are now in custody face a threat to their lives.  And we at the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center are extremely concerned for the safety of these individuals.  But there are many other minority groups inside Iran that also face threats and it is a wide range.  Sunnis -- and we often forget, that there is no Sunni mosque in Tehran, an amazing fact -- always strikes me as amazing fact.

Sufis; Sufism is making something of a comeback, particularly, amongst the youth at the moment, and that is causing the regime concern.  And so Sufis are being targeted by the regime.  We have, thanks to President Ahmadinejad’s visit to Columbia University, heard quite a lot about the threat to homosexuals inside Iran.  There is something of a debate in the human rights community as to the nature of this threat but there have been a number of executions of homosexuals inside Iran, oftentimes within the criminal justice system, often accompanied by allegations of male rape.  But nevertheless we certainly are seeing a lot of executions of gay men, particularly.

Trade unionists; the bus workers in Tehran trying to organize their own trade union have been subject to very aggressive intimidation, physical intimidation.  They are not the only group of trade unionists to attract that sort of unpleasant attention from the state.

Bloggers; the blogsphere, cyberspace, is a fascinating aspect of Iranian society at the moment and it is a subject that the Iranian government is taking more and more interest in.  New laws have been passed to try and restrict the freedom of bloggers to publish things on their websites.  It is really the least constrained public space left inside Iran and it is, of course, a youthful public space. 

And we tend to forget this is a young country.  And it is a country, obviously, with a huge and ancient history but it is also a country with a young and vibrant population; a very well-educated, for the most part, young and vibrant population that understands modern technology and understands modern technological tools to get their message out.  So this poses a grave threat to the Iranian government and they are clamping down on bloggers.  We have seen arrests, we have seen trumped-up charges and, as I say, we have seen new laws passed.

Ethnic minorities; Kurds, Azaris, Arabs have all found themselves targeted by the regime in recent years as well.  So the human rights situation inside Iran is not good.  Of course, the subject of this panel refers to Ahmadinejad.  I'm a little skeptical, really, whether that is where the focus should be.  I tend to think of him a little bit more as a symptom rather than the underlying cause.  You know, you have to look at the nature of the system of government inside Iran if you want to look at human rights abuses in the way that the successive governments have abused the criminal justice system, the rule of law.  It does not start with Ahmadinejad; it has its roots long before his presidency.  But his presidency has brought us some unique challenges.

There is a public information film doing the rounds inside Iran at the moment and it starts with -- it is produced by the Ministry of Intelligence and it starts with a very entertaining computer-generated sequence in a bunker underneath the White House where a cabal of very sinister Americans have got together to undermine the Iranian government.  And this cabal is led by two men in particular as well as sort of a generic gentleman from the CIA.  One is George Soros and the other, intriguingly, is John McCain, which suggests, perhaps, the Iranian regime knows rather more about American politics than perhaps we do. 

But they are working together to plan the overthrow of the Iranian government.  And the plan they come up with is to use human rights organizations to lead a velvet revolution to undermine the good governance inside Iran.  Cut to very less -- a very much live action:  Human beings on the streets of Tehran; a young boy who has fallen in with a bad crowd, much to their horror and shame and wistful sadness of his sister and mother.  He is meeting with dodgy men in cafes and they all look very sinister and his very decent and law-abiding sister is concerned for his safety and decides to search his room, which is interesting behavior in itself, and comes across a pistol hidden in the drawer of his wardrobe and immediately thinks, “Well, I must tell the security officials.”  

And she goes along to meet a very nice man from the Ministry of Intelligence who is very understanding, very caring; obviously, does not want to cause the family any pain whatsoever.  And there is a tasteful and gentle intervention where the young man is -- I hesitate to say arrested -- taken for a chat, and one is led to believe that in the fullness of time, he will rejoin his family reeducated and reoriented towards a brighter future.

The narrative, though, is fascinating, this linkage of human rights organizations with violence, with revolutionary activity.  And it is a very difficult narrative for human rights organizations like mine and many others, whether it is the Amnesty International, the open society institutes or smaller expatriate groups, to counter.  At the end of day, one of the things that I am often accused of -- I know “accused” is too strong a word, but a debate that I often find myself drawn into is whether or not the organization I represent is a regime-change organization. 

Well, you know, it is not.  You know, we do not advocate the change of the regime on an explicit level.  But I guess we need to take a step back and if you think about it; talking about a real change in a system of government so you have respect for human rights and you have the rule of law and you have respect for a constitution is a regime change.  It is not the overthrowing of a government; we like to think about it more about bringing people back to fundamental values that have got deep roots in Iranian soil.  But at the end of the day, it is very difficult.  How do we get this message across in a way that does not make us look like an enemy; it does not make us look like subversives?  And we found this tremendously difficult.

A lot of organizations -- nobody has got anybody on the ground inside Iran; it is not safe.  And we cannot work with people on the ground inside Iran.  Even academic institutions now will think twice before sending anybody into the country to do research.  So it is very difficult for us.  And the way that we have tried to reach out to people is through transparency, providing information with a great deal of detail and reaching out to the blogsphere to reach out to people in the cyberspace community and engage them in a conversation, a conversation where we provide a lot of facts that we hope they will take away and use for a discussion. 

We do not want to dictate what the discussion is; we do not want to tell people what to think.  What we are trying to give them is information that they can rely on and trust, and that means producing reports that are extensively researched but also extensively footnoted.

One of the things I noticed with my time in the human rights business -- a lot of organizations like Amnesty and Human Rights Watch, because of genuine and very real concerns about source protection, often, are very careful about sourcing where they get their information from.  And so, you have to trust the organization.  The organization trades on its reputation and its past history for good and accurate reporting but you have to take their word on trust for the most part.  What we try and do is footnote extensively everything we do.  We also try and scan it into a database so you can go online and look at the documents that we cite. 

And the idea is then that you get a report that you can second-guess.  You can look through the information for yourself; you can look at where we got our information from.  If we are citing a letter, if we are citing a government instruction, a memo or circular, if we have it, you can look at it.  You can decide for yourself whether it is a forgery, whether it is a fake, whether you find it convincing.  The idea then, at least, is you have got the tools for a debate.  And that is all we are trying to do. 

And I think that is what most human rights organizations are currently trying to do vis-à-vis Iran.  It is get a conversation going.  It is not a conversation we even have to be that much of a part of because at the end of the day, it is for Iranians to take this issue forward and it is for Iranians to decide what sort of society they want to live in.  But they cannot have that debate without accurate information.

And so, now, the focus seems to be, more than anything else, to try to get that information back inside the country.  And it reminds me of the old Soviet-era Samizdat publications, all these underground printing presses in basements where people produce copies of books that have been banned inside the East.  Well, this is the cyberspace equivalent of that.  It is not an underground printing press but it is a website or it is a LISTSERV.  And this is a way that we can jumpstart a debate and we do see it happening on the fringes, at least, of the blogosphere; people are talking about it and they are exchanging information.  And I think that, at this point, is about as much as we can hope for as human rights activists and that is to get a debate going.  Thank you.

Danielle Pletka:  Thank you very much.  Ali?

Ali Alfoneh:  Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.  Thank you, Dani, for providing me with this great opportunity to share my analysis with you.  It is a great honor to be sitting in this panel, especially sitting beside Dr. Hekmat of the Foundation for Iranian Studies.  Dani represented and presented Dr. Hekmat, but failed to mention that Dr. Hekmat has been the editor of Iran Nameh for almost three decades, almost three decades of science production; unpoliticized science.  And I really try to do my PhD research in the same tradition that Dr. Hekmat and his associates at the Foundation for Iranian Studies have been doing for the past 30 years.

The one piece of information which I think is important for me to share with you, this audience today, is that in my research, I have seen that there is a change in the composition of the political elites of Islamic Republic of Iran.  My research field is civil-military relations.  I'm mostly interested in studying the relationship between the Revolutionary Guards and the political elites of the Islamic Republic.

And as I was doing my research and I was looking at the political elites and composition of the political elites, I have found out that an ever-increasing number of elite members nowadays are former officers in the Revolutionary Guard.  So for the past 30 years, with some right, people have been calling the Islamic Republic a theocracy, a Mullah regime, a regime dominated by the Shia clergy.  But nowadays, I have -- I must say that the nature of the regime is changing into a military dictatorship.  And my observations come from, first of all, looking at the composition of the cabinets of the governments. 

And my discussion of Mr. Ahmadinejad is not so much of Mr. Ahmadinejad as an individual but as a representative of a certain class in the Iranian society, which means the officer class, officers from the Revolutionary Guards.  If you look at the composition of the Ahmadinejad government, 11 out of 21 cabinet ministers are former members of the Revolutionary Guard.  If you look at the latest round of parliamentary elections, you see an increase.  I do not have the exact number of parliamentary members who are former Revolutionary Guardists.  This is under very -- I'm waiting for information from the Majlis itself, the parliament.  They do a very, very good job at informing about social background studies of the members of the parliament. 

But I can see an increase.  I have been looking at the composition of the Iranian parliament, the Islamic Consultative Assembly from 1979 until today and I see an increase.  The current Majlis, I think -- I'm not so sure; I do not have the exact numbers of the latest elections -- between one-third and half of the parliamentarians are former members of the Revolutionary Guard.  This is a significant increase from, let’s say, mid ‘90s. 

The only one other period in the history of the Islamic Republic in which there has been such a significant presence of former officers in the parliament is the first parliament in the Islamic Republic in which there was a huge representation of members of revolutionary committees, Comite [indiscernible] and, of course, also the ideological commissars in the armed forces who were in the parliament.

But not only among the parliamentarians and the cabinet ministers, also among provincial governors.  If you look at the governors of the Islamic Republic and go systematically study each governor’s social background, you will see three types of individuals.  The first group, of course, is the former officers.  The second group is officers who have been running the Iranian prison administration system.  So somebody who is a prison administrator is appointed governor of this or that province by Mr. Ahmadinejad.  This, itself, you know, tells you something about the Kafkaesque nature of the Islamic Republic- that the system considers a prison ward a suitable person to become a province governor. 

And the third group of individuals that you see being members, being governors in the Islamic Republic is the former associates of Mr. Ahmadinejad from his time and era as Tehran mayor.  So his very, very close friends and associates are appointed governors in the Islamic Republic.  The fourth group which is -- the fourth administrative layer in the Islamic Republic which is somehow more difficult to analyze because the data is much more difficult to get together is the so-called commanders, farmindars of the provinces.  They are appointed by the Supreme Leader and they are all of them, as those whom I have been able of identifying -- all of them are former members of the Revolutionary Guard.

Now, I have been trying to understand and comprehend why there is such a necessity of having so many former officers in all these former positions of power, first; and, second, why the system considers it a necessity to replace clerics in these former positions of power with former officers, because for every officer who enters these former positions of power, a cleric goes out.  This is a very, very interesting matter to look at.  And I see several explanations.

The most important is the Islamic Republic of Iran leadership considers itself under a tremendous pressure; pressure from inside Iran, domestic pressure for reform and pressure from outside.  Pressure from outside, of course, stems from the Islamic Republic’s decision to take a course of conflict with regard to the nuclear issue with the West - with America, with the Europeans - but also with Iran’s neighbors, actually; none of them are really that happy with the nuclear programs of the Islamic Republic. 

And in a situation in which the Islamic Republic has chosen the path of confrontation, it is intolerable for the regime to have people among its midst, among the elites, criticizing the policies of the regime.  You always need to portray an image of strength of the regime and portray some kind of unity among regime elites in order to improve your negotiation position, bargaining position, with Westerners, especially in such a high- profile issue that the nuclear issue has become for the Islamic Republic. 

So in order to have this unity, you need macho officers in office instead of the bureaucratic leftovers from the presidencies of Mr. Khatami and Mr. Rafsanjani.  You need a new type of administrator in order to keep the course in the nuclear issue and maintain a very fast and very hard position in that case.

But there is also pressure from inside Iran; domestic pressure.  And as I see it, there are at least two main pressure groups.  And the Islamic Republic is not able to accept such demands for reform, or may be unable to fulfill such expectations for reform.  One group is, of course, the economic elites of the Islamic Republic, many of them associates or usually associated with the former President Hashemi Rafsanjani.  Those elites are the ones who are bleeding under current sanctions regimes. 

The Iran bazaar, the economic newspapers, you know, everybody is complaining about the current sanctions regimes.  Especially, sanctions in the banking sector are hitting those elites who are close to former President Rafsanjani and who are doing business and who want to get richer, and, therefore, have demonstrated some degree of pragmatism over the years.  Now, the Islamic Republic wants to maintain the hard position in the nuclear stance, in the nuclear issue and, therefore, cannot accept reforms in the economic sector.

There is also another matter, you know, why the Islamic Republic is not willing to perform any kind of economic liberalization, and it is, of course, that a certain degree of poverty is a control mechanism.  If everybody makes his own money, is economically independent from the state, they will also demand political rights.  But if they are dependent economically on the state, on the government, our public employees would, of course, also make lesser political demands as we have seen in different places.  And it is also – therefore, it is a side discussion, of course, but one might argue that the Chinese model of political non-liberalization but economic openings is maybe not applicable to the Islamic Republic with the current structure that it has.

The second, of course, you know, large group demanding reforms and reforms which the system is not willing to give this group is the group around former President Khatami, demanding political liberalization and some degree of democratization even.  This is also totally impossible for the Islamic Republic of Iran, at least for the time being.  I would even argue that, theoretically, it is impossible forever and ever because the system would totally collapse if you introduce political reforms very much like those which were introduced in the Soviet Union in the last stages. 

And this is, of course, also the example that the current leadership always uses.  It says that Mr. Khatami was Ayatollah Gorbachev.  If he introduced that kind of reforms in the system, the entire system would collapse.  People would demand for reforms, would accelerate, and the system could not accommodate this kind of systemic change.

And besides these two main groups demanding political rights, of course, are student organizations, women organizations; all sorts of smaller grassroots organizations trying to get a foothold and trying to fight for their rights as decent citizens in the Islamic Republic of Iran; not even demanding change of government or anything, just fighting for their rights.  But even that is intolerable for the Islamic Republic for the time being because the system believes, for the time being, that it is under pressure and they need to portray themselves as a powerful state.  So what you do is that you take some leaders from the Baha’i leadership and accuse of them of terrorism.  Why do you do this?  Or you accuse somebody of being a monarchist.

This, of course, is quite interesting.  We need to reread our classics of totalitarianism in order to understand the Islamic Republic.  It is, of course, true that there are many differences between the totalitarian structures of, let’s say, Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union and Iran.  But there are also some systemic similarities that we should attend to.  One of them, as Mr. Ahdiyyih very, very correctly points out, is that the terror does not begin when the revolution is over.  The terror regime always begins when the internal opposition is gone, when there is actually no serious opposition challenging the regime because the system is in constant need of enemies.

If the Islamic Republic of Iran had not United States of America, they would have sent out the entire Iranian fleet to discover America just to have an enemy.  A system like the Islamic Republic is in need of constant enemies, external enemies and internal enemies just in order to maintain control.  And hunting, purging the system of enemies of the revolution, of the counter-revolutionaries is also a mechanism of control perfectly well-known from other totalitarian regimes.  So there are systemic similarities between what we see in the Islamic Republic and other totalitarian regimes that we have seen throughout history.

Now, this terror regime, in my opinion, unfortunately, works; unfortunately, works.  This is also what political science tells us.  If you install this kind of fear into the hearts of the people, you can control them for a very, very long time, unfortunately.  And you see that five percent of the population or so in -- this is an example from occupied France.  The five percent to six percent of the population cooperate actively with the occupiers; five percent are resistance fighters; 90 percent just want to survive.  This is also true of all other totalitarian regimes.  Most people just want to survive yet another day and hope for the best in the future.

Of course, there are some very, very courageous figures challenging the regime on its own grounds.  You see clerical figures challenging the Islamic legality of the regime.  You have someone like Kadivar or Mohsen Kadivar, Abdullah Nouri, former Minister of Interior.  These kind of people, they write books in which they say that nothing else has damaged Shia Islam as much as the fact that the Islamic Republic has been in power for the past 30 years because everybody has seen in practice how it has developed.  And everybody, nowadays, is telling that, well, the system does not work and the malfunctions of the system are due to Shia Islam, not due to the people who administer this particular interpretation of Shia Islam.  So there are very, very courageous people but they are few.

And let me just round up this presentation because I have another presentation more specifically about the role of the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij militia later today and I’ll return to these issues.

This gamble of Ayatollah Khamenei, appointing so many Revolutionary Guardists and keeping people in check, does it work?  In the short run, yes, you can control people by fear mechanism, by having experts on violence controlling people and being in administrative positions.  But there are several very, very, very, I would say, serious risks involved with this strategy.  The first and most obvious is the lesson from civil- military relations everywhere else in the world.  It is that when you invite officers into government offices, you cannot throw them out again.  This is what we have seen everywhere else. 

And also, the fact that officers actually, especially of the Revolutionary Guard, are more popular than the clerics.  Military personnel are, generally, everywhere in the world - and this is certainly the case in Denmark, also in America and in Iran - more generally considered much more respectable persons than politician types.  After all, these people sacrificed everything during the war; they have a certain prestige in the society.  And now that they have power, why should they give up their political power?

The second challenge to the regime and the strategy of Mr. Khamenei is that Mr. Khamenei is solely basing his rule on the support of the Revolutionary Guardists.  This strategy was never the strategy of Ayatollah Khomeini.  Ayatollah Khomeini was extremely stubborn; he was old fashioned; he was everything.  But he was also very wise in his own, excuse me, old-man ways.  He was very wise.  He was very wise.  In his political testament he wrote, “Never allow the former officers to come into office.  Do not involve officers into politics.”  Why?  Because he knew the threats of a military coup.  When you invite all sorts of officers, they have weapons; they can control the system totally.

Second threat -– the third threat is that you can alienate -- by such a strategy, you alienate economic elites of the Islamic Republic.  All of them who are supporters of former President Rafsanjani, the economic elites -- they become -- they go –- develop from critics of the regime into enemies of the regime.  This is a very costly strategy for Ayatollah Khamenei. 

And, of course, lastly, you also radicalize the reformists.  The reformists also become radicalized because there is no room for expressing their political views and this is, of course, the tragic mistake of the late majesty the Shah of Iran who did not tolerate the opposition and the opposition radicalized.  So these lessons -- I hope Ayatollah Khamenei watches this presentation.  But these are the threats that such a strategy also entails beside the fact that it stabilizes in the short run.  Thank you.

Danielle Pletka:  In the note-to-self department, I should not be sitting next to Ali anytime soon in case I get referred to as an old lady.  Let me turn to Hormoz Hekmat for our last presentation.  Thank you.

Hormoz Hekmat:  First of all, I would like to thank American Enterprise Institute for inviting me to be here.  It is my pleasure because I have found that, seemingly, no other research institute in the United States that I know of is so in tune with what goes in Iran as this institute.  I may not agree with all the solutions that they propose but in terms of recognizing what the Islamic Republic of Iran is, I think no other institute or institution could surpass it.

I also would like to thank my friend, Ali, for his very generous comments about my –- what I do, and also take issue with him about the length of my life, how long I have in -– 30 years ago, I was actually studying in elementary school in Tehran.  I took over the editorship of Iran Nameh only about 14 years ago so I am not that old.

Now, I’m glad that I wanted to be the last presenter because, now, you are not going to hear much from me; most of what I wanted to say has been already said so I’m going to restrict myself to a few points that may not have been developed fully or were not referred to.  And, furthermore, I apologize for having to read what I have written; my memory, although I’m not that old, is failing me.

My comments on Mr. Ahmadinejad and his presidency and the impact of his presidency on Iran’s civil and political society is based mostly on my reading of the items carried by the official Islamic Republic of Iran’s news agency, IRNA, and some of the more reliable of Iran’s semi-independent journals and, particularly, my reading of the almost daily statements, declarations and open letters of various university student organizations across the county and their grievances, demands and hopes. 

I believe, in fact, that Iranian university students, along with women of Iran, are in the forefront of the long and dangerous and challenging struggle that the Iranians have taken upon themselves against the Islamic Republic of Iran.  And I would like to add right here that what we say about the restrictions that this new administration of Mr. Ahmadinejad has imposed upon all layers of Iranian civil society - students, student organizations, women’s NGOs, workers attempt to create their unions and women, in general - pales and which restrictions are far more severe than they were before -- pales in the face of the continued resistance and courage of Iranians students who, by droves, go to prison and become tortured, lose their right to continue their education, and also woman who bravely come to the streets once every while who have been active in achieving their goal of a one-million signature campaign that started about a year ago. 

And for which many brave women have been assaulted, injured, including Iran’s poet laureates and the bravest and they are really the most courageous and self-sacrificing intellectuals that we have had.  Simin Behbahani who is in her early 80s has been pummeled in the streets several times and she has been threatened by death.  So the pressures and restrictions go on but I believe that the spirit of resistance in Iranians, especially in these groups, is not waning; it is increasing.

I would like to make two points first.  One is that the notion that Mr. Ahmadinejad should be regarded as the main author of his policies and pronouncements even on the most serious consequential issues that touch upon the lives of Iranian citizens is not quite valid, as was pointed out by some of my co-presenters here.  Indeed, it was President Lee Bollinger of Columbia University who in his otherwise timely, refreshingly blunt and thoroughly objective descriptions of the current state of affairs in Iran generously elevated Mr. Ahmadinejad to the status of a petty dictator. 

I think, however, by no means one can consider him at a par with the main architects of the theocratic regime - I still would like to call that regime a theocracy despite the infusion of the Revolutionary Guards in it - or even as one of the most influential members of the exclusive circles of clerics and their military commanders who determine the objectives and the strategy of Iran’s domestic and foreign policies.  His theatrics and his tendency to evoke the blessings of the Hidden Imam are surely part of his persona; so are his choice of words and perhaps emphasis.  He may even be more deeply attached than his religiously clad colleagues, his mentor and even the Supreme Leader to his religious faith, but the originator of the current objectives or policies of the regime is not.

A second note –- second point I would like to make has to do with the rather common assumption that Mr. Ahmadinejad in his presentation of the objectives and world view of the Islamic Republic of Iran has little, if any, similarity with his predecessor Mr. Mohammad Khatami; however, apart from the tone and rhetoric, I do not see much difference between the two.  It is quite true that Khatami during his presidency allowed for a bit more freedom of expression.  We were less likely to become the subjects of abuse and punishment for infractions of Islamic dress code.  Journalists and writers had a wider range of subjects to write about. 

However, in terms of commitment to support and strengthen the essential pillars of the theocratic structure, loyalty to its constitution and, particularly, its world view, the two men can hardly be distinguished apart.  Granted Ahmadinejad speaks his mind unabashedly about these issues but Mr. Khatami tries and tried to conceal them in layers of destructive and flowery language and spoke about the rule of law, the importance of civil society and the value of the dialogue between civilizations without much substance and meaning.

I’m not going to get into the detail of the impact of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s administration on civil society and NGOs and different associations because reference has been made to these restrictions.  Since not much reference was made to the students, I would like to read a bit from an open letter that was recently sent or addressed to Mr. Ahmadinejad by members of the largest university students’ association.

In this letter, they say -- they criticize Mr. Ahmadinejad for waxing eloquent in his address to Columbia University students about his government’s commitment to and respect for freedom and human rights in Iran.  Why?  Unleashing his security forces to attack and imprison Iranian university students for months mainly for the crime of having an opinion.  In the same letter, it is claimed that within the previous two years, 43 Muslim students’ associations and cultural centers have been shut down.  More than 550 students have been summoned before disciplinary committees for expressing their opinions.  Many students have also been expelled and imprisoned for bogus or trumped up charges. 

The letter concludes by affirming the signers’ commitments to continue the struggle for freedom even while Mr. Ahmadinejad’s limitless generosity toward certain countries in Latin America, his inappropriate statements about the Holocaust and his insistence on Iran’s right to seek nuclear technology despite international concerns have brought grief, deprivation and sanctions for Iranian people.

I would like to add another point here and that is, as far as I can tell - and I refer to the fact that I have been almost meticulously following whatever comes out of these university associations in Iran - I have not once in the last 20 years, at least, seen any single reference to the plight of the Palestinian people, to the United States being a Great Satan, to the invasion or to the occupation of Iraq by the United States and the allied forces.  They concentrate simply on implicitly or explicitly criticizing the regime.  This has a significant meaning. 

They could have easily -- if they were of the mind to criticize the Israeli government or the American government, they would have done so.  It would have been to their advantage because, then, they would say, “Well, we are with you on these issues, important issues that you consider vital for Iranian -- for your national interest.  But at the same time, we want to criticize you a little bit too.”  They do not do that.  That shows, to me, a great distance; quite a great distance between the students who basically, I think, represent the general attitude of the Iranian public because they come from all classes and they number to about –- their number comes to about three to four million across Iran. 

And while at the same time, before I forget, I would like to add that nearly –- that according to government statistics, between 150 and 200,000 young people, mostly students and graduates from these universities, leave Iran 28 years after the revolution which was suppose to create a utopia in Iran after what the poor old Shah had done to that country during his reign.

Finally, I would like to make two points on the political area in Iran, the political arena, political parties and elections.  It is assumed -- everybody knows that there are no political parties in Iran but there are elections.  However, I wish in English language somebody who would coin a new word that would indicate some elections are not elections which should be some new word - non-election or a show, theatrics.  What was going on in Iran during the last 28 years and, especially, in the last election has absolutely nothing to do with the expression of people’s wishes and wants and political -- and needs, in terms of electing their representatives who have much less or a congress or a parliament have nothing, nothing, nothing to do. 

They do not have parties; they cannot aggregate and express their opinions through parties.  Individuals can know what they want by themselves in terms of how to present them; their desires for this kind of political participation.  No parties, no free press and, more important than that, the local groups, the NGOs have no right to choose their own candidates.  The candidates have to go through a vetting procedure, several vetting procedures.  At the end, the final decision is made by the Supreme Leader and the members of the Guardian Council as who should be the candidate –- who should be –- who are the candidates - legitimate candidates for the seats in the congress. 

And then once the phony show is over and the people are elected by less than 50 percent of the Iranian people basically participating in the elections, especially in last election -- I do not know about the percentage but it was very low, lower than the elections before.  Now once these so-called representatives get into majlis, they have absolutely no power of making laws because they are superseded by the Guardian Council, by the Expediency Council and, at the end, by the Supreme Leader himself. 

It is all a charade, and I was really flabbergasted about two years ago when I heard former President Clinton in Davos conference saying that, “Well, when you talk about Iran, you should remember that this country has had regular elections for the last 25 years.”  How could one say that if one knows what election means in Iran?

And finally, I’m going to conclude with reading a couple of statements made by –- do I have time for this?  Okay, sure, because I cannot find it.

Okay, this is a statement made by Ayatollah Montazeri, once the designated successor to Khomeini and long considered –- long consigned to house arrest later and has been -- who has described challenges facing the clerical regime in the following manner.  There are signs of unprecedented crisis in Iran with both internal and external dimensions.  And the core –- the reasons are, one, none of the promises of the revolutionary leaders have been fulfilled. 

The lack of experience in governance by an exclusive religious elite - we should add exclusive religious and military elite; the contradictory nature of the Islamic constitution; presidential accountability without the authority which is vested in the office of the Supreme Leader; disregard of the citizens’ basic rights and freedoms; the airing of the public’s faith in Islam.  This is a cleric, one of the founders of the Islamic Republic of Iran, one of the main leaders of the Islamic Revolution who is now sitting there and looking at what –- at the failure and confesses the failure of the regime. 

And more important than that is what Ibrahim Yazdi, with whom I had the dubious honor of being a member of the first Student Association created in the U.S. in the late ‘60s, committed to the change of monarchical system, change of this regime in Iran and who later became Foreign Minister of the first cabinet in the Islamic Republic under Mr. Bazargan. 

He says the theocratic system in Iran has failed.  He is still in Iran and he is free to react and the once-formidable theocratic system in Iran has failed, and the once-formidable moral herald authority of the Shia clergy has waned tremendously.  Ahmadinejad is representing the interest and ambitions of the Revolutionary Guard of which many active members are now occupying prominent and sensitive positions within this government as Ali pointed out.  His economic, political and social policies at home and behavior abroad have been far below expectations. 

The growing resentment of many social groups and classes in Iran, particularly amongst students, workers and woman regarding the prevailing political, social and cultural circumstances in one hand, and the gradual economic and political chaos particularly in recent years on the other may lead Iran towards a detour.

And finally, my final word, Mesbah Yazdi, a cleric who is long a religious and ideological mentor of Mr. Ahmadinejad, has summarized the effect of the Islamic Republic on the Iranian society as follows:  “The coming generation of Iranians is faced with dire dangers.  It is neither informed by traditional values and customs nor influence by Islamic tenets, educated under the influence of Western culture which is ever-present in the media and university classrooms.  They have learned nothing except to express their disdain for the government and at times even for Islam.  It is time that we all follow scrupulously the instructions of the Supreme Leader for transforming Iran into a truly Islamic society.”  Thank you.

Danielle Pletka:  I have committed a cardinal sin of moderators, which is to not keep us within our time.  But I hope that if our audience and our next panelists will indulge us a little bit, we can take a little bit of extra time for questions and answers about these excellent presentations.

It struck me that the criticism of one of our guests was exactly right, and that the Ahmadinejad presidency and its impact on Iranian society is probably not exactly correct and that we should have talked more generally about Ahmadinejad as a symptom growing out of –- growing out of Iranian society and the changes therein.

Let me open up the floor to questions.  If I can ask everybody to follow our rules - identify yourself and please put your statement in the form of a brief question.  Ken, I see your arm back there.

Ken Timmerman:  Ken Timmerman from the Foundation for Democracy in Iran.  I actually have a question for Ali Alfoneh, which I’m going to hold until your luncheon panel because it is specifically on the Rev Guards.  But in the meantime, Tom Parker, you are a very welcome addition to your organization, which has gotten millions of dollars in State Department funding and I think, thanks to your presence, they are finally doing some things that are useful.

You mentioned that it is impossible to work with or hard to work with people on the ground inside Iran.  In fact, lots of other organizations are doing that without millions of dollars in State Department funding.  I wonder if you could comment on the guidelines from the State Department because I know that they have said to some groups, “Do not work with groups inside Iran because it is too provocative to the regime.”  Have you gotten that kind of guidelines from the State Department?

Thank you.

Tom Parker:  No.  Actually, the State has really given us very few guidelines at all about how to spend their money other than to be a lot more productive than we were in our first two years, which I think was very reasonable of them.  Though I have been struck, actually, by the freedom that we have had to choose the subjects that we wanted to research.  We have not received any steer at all from State as to what subjects they want us to concentrate on or anything like that.  We get money from different pockets of State as well as you point out; it is not that we get one lump sum.  We get money from both Democracy, Human Rights and Labor and from the Middle East Program Initiative.  So we have different pots of money. 

But the human rights world is much like any other business; you still have to pay the bills.  My organization costs $650,000 a year to run; we have to find that funding from somewhere.

A challenge that I should have mentioned -- if you work on Iran, raising money from the Iranian community is very, very difficult.  It is a fractured community in many ways; there are lots of different political points of view.  It is very difficult to accept money from one person without alienating four others.  A lot of people still have family inside Iran; they do not want to be linked to anything that could be seen as being political to jeopardize their ability to travel or to see their family members. 

So we found it remarkably difficult to raise non-governmental sources of revenue which, dear God, I would love to do because, obviously, receiving large chunks of money from the State Department never looks good for the independence of any organization.  Nor would it look good if we were getting large chunks of money from the German government, the British government, or the Chinese.  You know what I mean?  It just is not great to have one source of funding or one major funder; you want diversity of funding.

In the NGO world, we talk about a funding stool.  The funding stool is an analogy used to say -- to illustrate the point you should have four funding streams.  Your funding streams should be governmental, private donors, foundations and revenue that you generate of which the best is to have revenue you generate; the worst is to have government funding because it is so whimsical and, obviously, dependent on political winds of change.  So we would love to broaden our funding sources; it is something that we have tried very hard to do in the past year.  But it takes time.  And most NGOs take three or four years to get to the point that they receive a broad range of funding.

Male Voice:  My name is Diwa [phonetic].  [Speaks away from the microphone].  The leader of Iran had a meeting in Kerman, a city in Iran and declared a kind of nuclear celebration. And he called the diplomacy of [Ahmadinejad] a new brand of diplomacy.  It seems that this diplomacy is working.  He thanked him and asked him please to continue just fine.  The thing that -- what he said at the same time looking at the responses from the other side is that almost every red line set by the Supreme Leader-- the Iranian government has violated all of them and there has been no real reaction to that.  My question is that -- do you think that this new diplomacy is really genuinely supported?

Danielle Pletka:  Mohebat, turn on your mike.

Mohebat Ahdiyyih:  This actually goes back to the more basic question that often comes up that whether the Supreme Leader is really solidly behind Ahmadinejad and supports him.  And for those who deal with Iran know that it is very hard to come to a solid conclusion about that.  But, at least, the statements the Supreme Leader have made over time since Ahmadinejad has become president has been in his support.

Once in a while, he may indirectly adjust something and even change a policy or a move by the president but, generally speaking, he has been supporting him.  And what he refers to with Ahmadinejad’s policy being successful is what he himself - Ahmadinejad and his supporters - calls aggressive policy rather than passive policy.  And they accuse Khatami, especially, of giving in to the West on a variety of issues.  And so, they compare that with Ahmadinejad’s record and say that Ahmadinejad is not like that; he is bringing back the solid power.

For example -- I’ll just give you an example; you will see how it works.  As there is discussion of negotiating with Iran here, there is also a discussion in Iran, Iranian media, about whether they should negotiate with the U.S. or not.  And there are various opinions of that.  So at some point, Supreme Leader -– Ahmadinejad, obviously, from the beginning did not look like he would be for negotiation.  But circumstances eventually were forced and some had to take place, as you know, in Iraq; some discussions have taken place.

So the way Supreme Leader solved the problem -- because he had to satisfy the fact that there had to be some talks and then there are these large hard-line factions that do not want to talk.  The way he solved the problem which actually shows a bit of genius on the part of Supreme Leader was that he said, “Yes, we are going to sit down and talk with Americans and inform them that they are guilty.”  And the term he used is [speaks in Farsi/Persian].  I know you have a doctorate in law and you know what that means.  That means you officially inform a guilty party of the guilt. 

So Supreme Leader said, “That is the purpose of this discussion.”  That is how they proceeded in talking with the Americans in Iraq.  So they always have, as you know -- you follow Iranian developments.  The way to strike this kind of language that would satisfy to some extent different factions.  But at this point, hard-line faction is in ascendancy and Ahmadinejad represents that faction.

Danielle Pletka:  I’m sure there are plenty of people with whom they would negotiate who would agree with them about our guilt as well.

Mohebat Ahdiyyih:  Yes.

Chris Isham:  Chris Isham with CBS News.  The question is addressed to Mr. Ahdiyyih but I would be interested in the thoughts of the other panelists as well.  You mentioned that you felt the regime was facing serious instability.  What is the evidence of that instability?  How severe is it?  And do you think it is, on the whole, manageable?

Mohebat Ahdiyyih:  Instability in the sense that there is division in the -- since the beginning of the revolution, there was one thing that was clear.  There was a conservative faction, hard-line but kind of pragmatic, that was making ultimate decisions about how things would go.  And that practical approach is kind of lost.  That was to a great extent represented by Rafsanjani, former president, and his supporters.  And if you look at how he has been treated since Ahmadinejad became president, it is astounding the way Rafsanjani is talked about in the Iranian websites supporting Ahmadinejad.  And, of course, Rafsanjani is not someone who would easily give up and just go away.

In fact, in, I think, 2006, it was elections for Assembly of Experts; it looked like he even rose by becoming -- in fact, overcoming the opposition from Mesbah Yazdi [phonetic] and others and becoming their speaker.  So the fact that you have -- if you check closest websites to these leaders - Rafsanjani, Ahmadinejad - on a daily basis, it is so unusual, the language that they are using against each other.  It is almost like they are ready to kill each other; that is the language they are using.  And that is the outward sign of instability. 

But also the fact that - I’ll just give one more example and I’ll stop - Rafsanjani has been repeating that Iran faces a serious threat of being attacked by the U.S., and he thinks this is very serious; it could happen.  Ahmadinejad and his factional supporters say it is never going to happen.  It is just a psychological war waged by the West.  So it is just an entirely different world view that they seem to have.

And also, both sides are considering what is the reaction of the population.  Obviously, Ahmadinejad does not want Iranians to think U.S. is about to attack.  In fact, I think if Iranians find out, because they do not know the risks of having this nuclear program which could lead to a military confrontation, the regime would face serious opposition by the large numbers of Iranians.  The key is to find a way to communicate with the Iranian people that anyone who finds that probably would win a Nobel Prize for something.  How to reach the Iranian population is one of the biggest questions we are facing these days.

Danielle Pletka:  Actually, this young man had his hand up.  Thank you.  And what I would like to do is just take one more very quick question.  If you would be kind enough to keep it super brief because we need to wrap up.

Alex Vatanka:  Good morning.  Alex Vatanka from Jane’s.  A question for Mr. Ahdiyyih.  You mentioned Mahdism and, you know, we have talked about Ahmadinejad and the Hidden Imam agenda.  Now, in Iraq, Mahdism, essentially neighboring Iraq - the holy sites of Najaf and Karbala - the debate over there is to fight against the Hoza [phonetic].  That is Mahdism in Iraq.

How can Ahmadinejad in Iran be moving towards Mahdism if the theocracy that is in place has resulted in becoming the president?  Essentially, what I’m saying is Mahdism in Iraq is rejectionist.  Ahmadinejad is not a rejectionist.  How do you -- how does he work that one out?  Thank you.

Mohebat Ahdiyyih:  Fascinating.  I wish we had more time to just address this one topic.  But just in one minute or two it is -- the dynamics that is going on in Iran right now regarding Mahdism, Ahmadinejad, clerics, secular hardliners is one of the most interesting things to watch in Iran because there is one thing clerics in Iran wanted to hide and did not want that to come out at all since the beginning.

In fact, they even revised books of traditions as old as centuries like Haviz as they call it.  They changed it; the words were taken out because there are certain things about Mahdism, about Mahdi, about Hidden Imam that these people find out about that.  It is so astonishing.

For example, the fact that the greatest enemies of the Hidden Imam are going to be the clerics, that is right in the traditions.  And that, in fact, one of the main accomplishments of the Hidden Imam is going to be the defeat of the clerics that kind of wiped them out.  So here is a situation that you have a theocracy establishment run by the clerics and here is a president who believes in Mahdism and how is he going to handle this.

In early months of his presidency, it was not unusual to hear from Ahmadinejad advisers that would actually openly say, “When Hidden Imam appears, he will slaughter the clerics.”  They were coming -- statements like that were coming out of Iran, which actually frightened the clerical establishment and until today you hear and you read complaints coming out of Qum [phonetic] about the fact that Ahmadinejad’s government does not take clerics seriously; they are being disrespected and that they are being undermined.

 And, in fact, that is not only true; Ahmadinejad seems to be pushing for another class to replace them and that is Maddaham [phonetic] which are connected with IRGC and Basij.  That is a pseudo class of lay clerics that are becoming very powerful, and, in fact, one of them won the second place in the recent election of the Majlis which was very unusual for them.

Thank you.

Danielle Pletka:  I think Ali had a last comment.

Ali Alfoneh:  Thank you.  In Washington D.C., there is almost a consensus that the Iranian president’s remarks about the Twelfth Imam and that kind of thing is because he is mentally unbalanced.  But I totally agree with Mr. Ahdiyyih.

This Mr. Ahmadinejad is brilliant in many ways.  He is fairly well educated, he is very well read and he also knows Machiavelli’s Principe by heart.  He knows that you can manipulate people with the help of religion.  You can use religion instrumentally, and instrumental use of religion in the case of Dr. Ahmadinejad - he is a doctor, let’s not forget - is to use this Mahdi phenomenon to promote his matters. 

What he is doing is quite interesting for anybody who knows the history of Christianity -- development of Christianity.  When President Ahmadinejad says that he communicates with the Twelfth Imam somehow, he sends a letter into a well and he receives some kind of answer about which ministers to appoint for his government.  He is secularizing access to God.  He is democratizing access to God Almighty and to the Twelfth Imam.  Why?  Because, then, you no longer have the clergy as middle-men between the individual and God Almighty. 

So, in a way, this could be -- and this is my interpretation and this is nothing that I hear anywhere else but Mr. Mohebat’s comments today that this could have tremendous effects about the future developments of Shia Islam.  I know that Dr. Mehdi Khalaji from the Washington Institute totally disagrees with us, and I wish he was here to discuss this issue.  He has a doctorate in theology.  I wish he had been here to make his remarks.

Thank you.

Danielle Pletka:  He was out of town.  I’m going to apologize to the gentleman who had his hand up because I really think we need to move on.  Let me encourage you to approach our panelists afterwards.  We are going to take a very small - if I may ask your indulgence - break and move to our next panel.

Thank you to our panelists.  Excellent presentations.

Panel II:  Iranian Foreign Policymaking and the West

 Danielle Pletka:  Can I ask everybody to be seated, please?  In an effort to keep you all on your toes, Michael Rubin and I have switched places.  I’m going to moderate and he is going to speak, which I think will be of great benefit to all of us, me included.  Our next panel is on Iranian foreign policymaking in the West.  Again, I think what we are interested in doing here is not talking as much about the symptoms, and talking a little bit about how Iranian foreign policymaking comes together, how we respond to it, trying to look at it from a slightly different perspective than, perhaps, is normally done in coverage of issues that I know are familiar to everybody. 

We have three panelists to discuss these issues: Patrick Clawson, who is practically an honorary scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, although I’m not going to tell the board or Rob Satloff at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.  But Patrick is the deputy director for research at the Washington Institute.  He is a well-known expert and authority on Iranian issues and on Iranian economic questions, as well, and writes frequently on these issues. 

Alex Vatanka, who will present first, is the managing editor of Jane’s Intelligence Digest and Jane’s Islamic Affairs.  And he is the resident specialist at the Jane’s Information Group on Iran.  I do not think that Alex has spoken here before, have you?

 Alex Vatanka:  No.

 Danielle Pletka:  So I’m very happy to have you among the many recidivists.  Michael Rubin is a resident scholar at AEI.  He is also a senior lecturer at the Naval Postgraduate School’s Center for Civil Military Relations and the editor of the Middle East Quarterly.  I know that everybody here is familiar with his writing on Iran.  And I’m glad that he was willing to trade places with me. 

Let me also ask if our panelists can turn off their Black Berries.  Apparently, that is a part of what is causing some of our sound dodginess.  I’m going to be the first to do that, as well.  Alex, over to you.

 Alex Vatanka:  Well, good morning, everyone, and thank you again to the American Enterprise Institute for inviting me this morning.  Very tough to obviously say anything half decent after what we heard already, so forgive me for not telling you anything that you have not already heard.  But the focus, at least, in the couple of minutes I have will be on the foreign policy aspects when it comes to Iran. 

Those of us who sort of follow the Iranian news on a daily basis are faced with this diversity of opinion coming from Iran.  There is debate on all sorts of issues: domestic, social, economic, political, and so forth.  This is not a country that is not having -- opinions have been expressed publicly inside the country.  That is the case.  Well, when you actually think about the most critical issues that are facing Iran, that is where you do not have the debate.  At least that is my reading, and I would love to hear other people’s opinions. 

Those are the issues where you do not have the debate that is obviously necessary.  I have called it red lines.  I do not know if it really make sense, but you often hear this phrase, “red lines.”  The Iranians love to say, “That is our red line.”  A couple of days ago, an Iranian official was told what happened in Lebanon, what happened with Hezbollah.  The official kept talking about the governor of Lebanon having crossed Hezbollah’s red line.  So you hear this again and again. 

So what are these red lines in Iran?  As far as I can tell, the three red lines, as far as Iranian foreign policy relations with the West and the U.S., in particular, are concerned -- these relate to the nuclear dossier and Iran’s nuclear program, Iranian interventions in Iraq, and, obviously, the last one which is the future of U.S.-Iran relations, a direct head-on issue that concerns the entire regime.  These are the red lines.  The fact that they are red lines and are not part of that debate that is going on inside the country over other issues, I think, from my reading, my humble understanding, is because they are directly related to the interest of the Supreme Leader.  That is the only reason why they are red lines. 

If Ali Khamenei was not the Supreme Leader, they would not have been red lines.  They would have been issues that could have been debated in a much more sophisticated, systematic way than they are being debated at the moment.  And for Ali Khamenei, these are critical issues because they are directly, from his perspective, tied to his future.  And that is why they are red lines.

Let me start with this.  And again, I think I’m the only one today who is going to have a PowerPoint and I apologize if this is going to annoy anyone here.  So there is a debate and criticism is occurring on a daily basis.  Let me give you an example.  Ahmadinejad’s overseas trips are very often criticized massively by various media in the country.  Ahmadinejad’s, for instance, adventures in Latin America - very frequently criticized on all different levels by the media. 

But when it comes to the nuclear issue, when it comes to his attitudes towards the United Nations, when he comes up with things like “The Iranian nuclear program is a locomotive without brakes on,” you do not hear criticism of Ahmadinejad.  I think the reason for that is by criticizing Ahmadinejad, what that newspaper or that official is doing is indirectly criticizing the Supreme Leader.  And that is where the red line is.  If a policy seemed to be sanctioned by the Supreme Leader, you stay away from it.  That is just to be on the safe side. 

I just heard Mr. Ahdiyyih say before that Khamenei does not have decisive power, and I agree fully with that.  He does not have decisive power; I wish I have brought one of these diagrams which show the distribution of power in Iran.  But it seems to me he does have a decisive interest, which is for him to stay on in power and for the Islamic republic to continue and the office of the Supreme Leader in Iran to continue to exist the way it had existed since the creation of the Islamic republic.  That is one decisive interest that he does have, despite the fact that he does not have decisive power. 

So all he seems to be doing is making sure the regime continues.  And if there is one issue in his mind that would undermine the regime and if there is one issue that scares him more than anything else is U.S. opposition to the regime.  That is why the U.S and everything -- any single issue where the U.S. is involved vis-à-vis Iran, again, be it nuclear, Iran’s involvement in Iraq, sponsorship of terrorism, and so forth, if it involves the U.S., it becomes a Khamenei-type of state of affairs.  Hence, the debate is not taking place because nobody in this system is able to pick up a fight with the Supreme Leader. 

And there is a second point there.  I mean, broadly speaking, from what I can detect - and I have really simplified this - where you have a reformist, people like Mohammad Khatami, the former president; people like, arguably, Mehdi Karubi, who is trying to run perhaps, again, for the presidency in 2009, sort of center-left.  You have got the conservative pragmatists, which is now in Iranian political terms the big bloc, and it is a messy bloc.  Anybody can walk into this bloc and walk out again tomorrow, depending on where the wind is taking you. 

It is a confusing one, yet it does have the upper hand at times.  The most notable individuals that belong to the conservative pragmatic camp are people like the former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani; people like Ali Larijani, the chief nuclear negotiator, who is probably going to be running for the presidency in 2009; people like Hasan Rohani, the former chief nuclear negotiator.  It is a big bloc.  And then you have got the far right, best represented by the face of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and people like him. 

I would say the reformists are the tiniest of these three blocs.  The far-right is probably second in terms of size, perhaps not influence; it might be more influential but in terms of size and where debate might emanate from, in terms of individuals who stand up and say, “All right, I have something to say about the long-term strategic interests of Iran,” if we are expecting a particular face to come out, I think we should look out for a conservative pragmatist because, as I said, just because of numbers. 

Finally, if there is time I would like to touch on this issue of the Supreme National Security Council.  This, as far as the Iranian constitution is concerned, the constitution that was revised in 1989, is the body that decides strategic national security issues in Iran.  There is nobody else that has the power invested or organ that has these types of powers invested as the Supreme National Security Council.  And the Supreme National Security Council was created in 1989 after the death of Ayatollah Khomeini, the founder.  And the reason seems pretty obvious.  Look, nobody is going to be able to match the prestige and power and authority of Khomeini.  How do we do it?  How would we bring consensus about, hence, the creation of the Supreme National Security Council? 

So it is supposed to forge foreign policy consensus but I have some thoughts on that; I’ll have a slide later on.  But I would say, actually, it does not seem to be forging or bringing about consensus at all.  If there is one entity in the Iranian system where you can every time and again see the hand of one all-powerful individual or entity, it is the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who I say is sufficiently powerful to coordinate internal regime disagreements. 

Look, we have to remind ourselves the pressure that Iran is under.  I mean since the republic was created in 1979 you have not heard these types of statements that Joint Chiefs of Staff spoke of back in April that the Pentagon is preparing for possible military action against Iran, and that Iran has expressed long-term goals to be the regional power.  You have had three sets of sanctions imposed on Iran because of its non-failure to act upon the resolutions taken against it; three sets of UN resolutions, which could turn out to be much more penalizing in months to come, depending on what happens at the UN Security Council among the permanent five plus Germany. 

You have Arab states in the region who are directly or indirectly saying to the Iranians, “Look, we do not like what you are doing in Lebanon.  We do not like what you are doing in Gaza.  We are suspicious of your ambitions in Iraq.”  So you have -- combine these three issues - the fact that the U.S. has not been putting pressure on Iran to this extent ever, since the creation of the Islamic republic; UN is now in the fray; and you have got neighboring states, states that you actually have borders with, telling you they are kind of anxious about what you are doing - these things to me suggest you should have a very dynamic and hot debate inside Iran.  And that debate is taking place, but it is divided. 

First, let me point out that, as I think was pointed out before, there is no real debate inside Iran about whether the U.S. is going to attack Iran over its nuclear program militarily.  I do not see that debate.  That might have happened in 2004, 2005, but it is not there anymore.  It is not there anymore.  And I will get to that; that is actually the point that follows.  But, look, in Iran it seems that the debate is about the U.S. trying to weaken Iran in the Middle East.  So those who are debating this issue are saying, “Look, never mind the idea that the U.S. is going to attack us, but we do have an adversary here and we have interests in the region.  How do we best secure our interests?”  And there is a clear division there. 

Second to that, you have worries inside the regime about what is the U.S. government going to do undermine the regime?  We heard about the Shiraz bombing; very interesting.  We have heard about the ministry of intelligence last week come out with all sorts of accusations about the British and the Americans being involved.  The reading -- at least the debate is, about subversive elements inside Iran being aided and guided and so forth by foreign powers.  Obviously, they refer to the U.S. and UK every single time. 

This is not something new.  This goes back to 2004 with the first beheading of the IRGC members at the hands of Jundullah, the Sunni insurgents back then.  But it is escalating and there is more and more of this in the media in Iran.  Now, this is a sidekick to what I’m saying here, but you could imagine what tool this is in the hands of hardliner if you were trying to bring about any kind of reform in this system.  Anything you will try and do, they will label you a counterrevolutionary, somebody who has an agenda that is actually trying to promote the interest not of the Iranian people but of the United States.  It is an amazing, powerful tool in the hands of the hardliners in Iran. 

Another thing about the Iranian hardliners is they talk about military action against Iran; statements, as I put up there, by Joint Chiefs of Staff Mullen [phonetic] as a bluff.  They see only a carrot; they do not see a stick.  They say, “Look, the U.S. is totally bogged down.”  The phrase they love to use is “quagmire”; the Iraqi quagmire for the Americans, the quagmire in Afghanistan. 

There is no prospect for a U.S. military action against Iran.  All they say to you is go and read your U.S. media.  Where is that going to come from?  With what force and capability?  So they are saying, “Resist it.  Resist the rhetoric that is coming from Washington because if you resist, you will get the concessions that you have been seeking.” 

But the reformists take another attitude to this.  And again, this often is implicit because in a system like that of Iran, the red lines being in place, criticizing the nuclear program -- what the Iranians are doing in Iraq and so forth could easily end up making you serve time in a prison somewhere.  But as I said, there is a concern.  I think with Mohammad Khatami the last two weeks have been saying about, “Look, what are we doing in neighboring states?” 

He did not say, “What are we doing in Iraq?”  He was more indirect because he has to be.  He has to be very careful what he says.  But there is this concern that Iran is overplaying its hand.  This assertiveness that define in certain factions within Iran - as I said, primarily among the far right - does not have the full support. 

A very interesting editorial that I just picked up from the 11th of May from Kayhan; this is the mouthpiece of the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s office.  The chief editor of Kayhan, Shariatmadari, is appointed by the Supreme Leader.  So in many ways people read Kayhan thinking, “This is what the Supreme Leader thinks.”  If you read this today, I would suggest what an assertive tone for a country that is faced by UN Security Council resolutions time and again; threat of U.S. force, the mightiest military power that the planet has ever seen; your Arab neighboring states are saying, “What are you doing,” and you come up with something like this. 

The power game in the Middle East does not have more than two players, namely Iran and America.  Where is the mention of Arab states?  Where is the respect that Saudi Arabia feels it is entitled to?  There is none.  Saudi Arabia is not even seen as a player.  It is between Iran and the U.S.  And when they find a grand bargain that they can sort of agree to, then that is the solution. 

I’m running out of time, but I’m more than happy to give you the slides later.  But look at this sort of a slightly different take by a reformist newspaper, which is actually affiliated with Mehdi Karubi’s.  It says, “Look, the P5 plus one is drawing a plan, an incentive package for Iran to solve the deadlock over Iran’s nuclear program.  And Iran has proposed a package, which includes solution in four global areas, including global security, democracy, energy, and the economy.” 

Basically, the issue is “Who are you kidding?”  With what tools in the toolbox are you going to go out there and try and achieve these grand, wonderful visions?  What about eradicating poverty in Iran first?  And it says, “Mr. President, many of the countries that you denounce and intend to export spirituality to are dream places that our compatriots are seeking to get visas to.” 

So again, there is a debate.  But, you see, you do not have those red lines here.  There is no issue of the nuclear program mentioned here, or Iran in Iraq.  You’ve got to be very abstract about it.  And I think that abstractness is one of the major issues that you somehow have to work out with.  How do you get more specific? 

Okay, I’m going to wrap up.  But very quickly, these are the figures here that you have in the Supreme National Security Council.  And if the Supreme National Security Council in Iran headed by Ahmadinejad is the organ that is supposed to bring about consensus, just look at who is in that council; you see there is never going to be a consensus coming out of this organization. 

I mean, I want to get into a bit of detail here.  I mean, we heard somebody say they want to kill each other.  I bet that will happen at some point in my lifetime.  That leaves this guy in charge of the whole thing.  And that is why we spend too much time on Ahmadinejad, not enough time about this guy, why he is worried, where he is coming from, where he wants to go.  With that, thank you very much.

 Danielle Pletka:  Thank you.  And I’m sorry to make you accelerate.  I hope we will be able to post Alex’s PowerPoint presentation on our website.  Let me turn to Patrick.  Thank you.

 Patrick Clawson:  Thank you.  There has been concern in Washington and the West, in general, about an apocalyptic tendency in the Islamic Republic’s foreign policy.  Most of us do not know very much about apocalyptic thinking in Shia Islam but what little we learn suggests that, indeed, the return of the Mahdi will be a very bloody moment by many traditions; he will kill two-thirds of humanity.  But as far as we can tell, there is no indication whatsoever that at any point, anyone around Ahmadinejad or the president himself has ever suggested that the way to hasten the return of the Hidden Imam is through launching a bloody war. 

Let me just repeat that.  There are no indications, whatsoever, that either Ahmadinejad himself or the people around him think that the way to hasten they return of the Hidden Imam is through launching a bloody war.  Indeed, in his many statements, if you look at them carefully, watch his body language, he is deeply convinced that - and so are many of the people around him, many of his advisers - that the Hidden Imam is going to return first but they are not even consistent or clear in saying that any human action can bring that about.  And in the face of criticism from many of the devout, they will retreat into ambiguity on that very question as to whether or not it is possible for human action to bring about this event, which they expect to happen soon. 

That said, I should warn you that a great deal of what Ahmadinejad says -- and not just Ahmadinejad personally but many other people around him, many other people in the Revolutionary Guard Corps and, for that matter, frankly, many of Khamenei’s best friends and Khamenei himself.  Much of what they say is entirely divorced from the great philosophical traditions of Shia Islam and that by his very training and orientation and his entire life experience, Khamenei - not Ahmadinejad, but Khamenei - has been opposed to the application of reason to the matters of religion and has believed in deeply superstitious things.  This is a man who is repeatedly on record as believing that with enough sufficient faith he can teleport himself any place on earth physically.

So this is not somebody who is going to be necessarily constrained by the great philosophical traditions.  Thi