Velayat-e-Faqih (Supreme Leader) and Iranian Foreign Policy: An Historical Analysis

Abstract

There has been an increasing assertion of the velayat-e-faqih in Iranian politics in recent years. This has led to tensions between them and the presidential office in Iran. Against this backdrop, this article seeks to analyse the constitutional position of the velayat-e-faqih and how it has interacted with other institutions to shape Iranian foreign policy. The article critically analyses the relationship between the velayat-e-faqih and different popularly elected presidents. It concludes that this institution has been able to determine the course of Iranian foreign policy so far and will play an important role in its formulation in the future.

Notes

1. ‘We will never let the enemies abuse some interior issues’, Presidency of the Islamic Republic of Iran, May 2, 2011, at http://www.president/ir/en/?ArtID=27975.

2. ‘Political Disputes Threaten National Missions: Official’, Tehran Times, May 1, 2011, at http://www.tehrantimes.com/Index_view.asp?code=239736.

3. Amir M. Haji-Yousefi, ‘Iran's Foreign Policy during Ahmadinejad: From Confrontation to Accommodation’, paper presented at the annual conference of the Canadian Political Science Association, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada, June 2010, pp. 3–6.

4. Baqer Moin, Khomeini: Life of the Ayatollah, I.B. Tauris, London, 1999, p. 229.

5. Ibid., p. 265.

6. Asghar Schirazi, The Constitution of Iran: Politics and the State in the Islamic Republic, Translated by John O’ Kane, I.B. Tauris, London, 1997, p. 13.

7. Article 5, Constitution of the Islamic Republic, Iran Chamber Society, at http://www.iranchamber.com/government/laws/constitution_ch01.php

8. Imam Khomeini, Islam and Revolution: Writings and Declarations, Translated and annotated by Hamid Algar, KPI, London, 1985, p. 62.

9. Ervand Abrahamian, Khomeinism: Essays on the Islamic Republic, University of California Press, London, 1993, pp. 54–57.

10. Khomeini, Islam and Revolution, pp. 60–62.

11. Quoted in Moin, Khomeini, p. 261.

12. Ibid., p. 158.

13. Schirazi, The Constitution of Iran, p. 48.

14. Quoted in Moin, Khomeini, p. 230.

15. Ibid.

16. Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Iran Chamber Society, at http://www.iranchamber.com/government/laws/constitution_ch01.php

17. Ibid.

18. Schirazi, The Constitution of Iran, p. 13.

19. Bonyads are semi-governmental religious charities that are in reality major holding companies, acting as a covert source of wealth for the regime.

20. Schirazi, The Constitution of Iran, p. 13.

21. Ibid., p. 225.

22. Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Iran Chamber Society, at http://www.iranchamber.com/government/laws/constitution_ch09.php

23. The Assembly of Experts, Iran's highest-ranking religious and political authority, was formed in 1983 and consists of 86 Islamic scholars. As per the current arrangement, the ‘Guardian Council has the responsibility of supervising the elections of the Assembly of Experts’ (Art 99). The Assembly of Experts has the power to elect, supervise and remove the Supreme Leader. Members of the Assembly are religious scholars whose names are vetted by the Guardian Council and they are directly elected to an eight-year term in a nationwide poll. The Assembly meets twice a year to review major national issues, and every other year to appoint a new chairman. The present chairman of the Assembly is Ayatollah Mahdavi Kani.

24. According to Mehdi Moslem, the Constitution ‘was passed in November 1979 (and revised in the second half of 1989) laid the foundation of a theocracy and made the faqih (Khomeini) the central figure in the Iranian polity and the Sharia the basis for the country's system’. See Medhi Moslem, Factional Politics in Post-Khomeini Iran, Syracuse University Press, New York, 2002, p. 30.

25. The Guardian Council is charged with examining all legislation passed by the Majlis to ensure that it conforms to Islamic law. According to Article 91, the Council of Guardians consists of 12 members; six of them must be ‘just and pious’ clergymen who are chosen by the Supreme Leader. The other six must be Muslim lawyers who are first selected by the High Council of Justice, then approved by a majority vote of the Majlis. The members of the Guardian Council serve six-year terms, with half the members being changed every three years. It is charged with interpreting the Constitution of Iran, supervising elections of, and approving candidates for the Assembly of Experts, the presidency and the Majlis.

26. The Expediency Council is an administrative body appointed by the Supreme Leader and was created following the revision of the Constitution on February 6, 1988. It was originally set up to resolve differences between the Majlis and the Guardian Council, but its true power lies more in its advisory role to the Supreme Leader.

27. The Majlis currently has 290 representatives, changed from the previous 270 seats since the 18 February 2000 election. In the present Majlis, seats were secured as follows: conservatives 195 seats (67.2 per cent); reformists 51 seats (17.9 per cent); independents 39 seats (13.4 per cent); American recognised minority religion 2 seats (0.6 per cent); Assyrian and Chaldean (Catholic) one seat (0.3 per cent); Jewish one seat (0.3 per cent); and Zoroastrian one seat (0.3 per cent).

28. Eva Patricia Rakel, Iranian Foreign Policy since the Iranian Islamic Revolution: 1979–2006, Department of Politics, University of Amsterdam, BRIL, 2007.

29. Moslem, Factional Politics in Post-Khomeini Iran, p. 23.

30. Ibid., pp. 84–87.

31. Rakel, Iranian Foreign Policy, p. 167.

32. Moin, Khomeini.

33. Moin, Khomeini, p. 266.

34. Ibrahim Mahmoud Yaseen Alnahas, ‘Continuity and Change in the Revolutionary Iran Foreign Policy: The Role of International and Domestic Political Factors in Shaping the Iranian Foreign Policy, 1979–2006’, PhD dissertation, Department of Political Science, University of West Virginia, 2007.

35. Moin, Khomeini, p. 204.

36. Ibid., p. 210.

37. This Council was formed by Khomeini during his short stay in France in 1978. Its members included Khomeini's most trusted followers. Dilip Hiro argues that ‘the IRC commanded exclusive loyalties of two powerful revolutionary organisations: Komitehs and courts. In March 1979, the IRC was said to have 13 members, seven of them clerics: Ayatollahs Taleqani, Beheshti, Motahhari, and Abdul Karim Mousavi-Ardebili; and Hojatalislams Hashemi-Rafsanjani, Mahdavi-Kani, and Muhammad Javed Bahonar. Its six members were Bazargan, Bani-Sadr, Qutbzadeh, Yazdi, Yadollah Sahabi, and Ali Akbar Moinfar’. See Dilip Hiro, Iran under the Ayatollahs, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London and New York, 1987, p. 107.

38. Sandra Mackey, The Iranians: Persia, Islam and the Soul of a Nation, Penguin, New York, 1998, p. 296. See also Alnahas, ‘Continuity and Change’.

39. Quoted in Moin, Khomeini, p. 260.

40. Ibid., pp. 261–262.

41. Ibid., pp. 290–291.

42. Literally it means source to imitate or follow. Among the Shias, it is a label given to a Shia authority, especially a Grand Ayatollah who has the authority to make legal decisions within the confines of Islamic law.

43. Discussing Rafsanjani's revolutionary process, Mackey argues that ‘Rafsanjani is perhaps the prime example of Iran's revolutionary leaders who through a process of governing converted from zealous revolutionaries to pragmatic statesmen. Growing more concerned for the nation than the revolution, he began to hint at rapprochement with the US as early as 1983. He masterminded the 1985 arms deal with the Reagan administration in order to secure the weapons Iran so desperately needed in the war with Iraq. In 1987, he prevented a showdown between the radicals and the pragmatists that would have damaged the state by convincing Khomeini to abolish the Islamic Republican Party. In 1988, he paved the way for Iran to end the war with Iraq. Caught in the web of Khomeini's perceived infallibility, Rafsanjani reluctantly stood behind the imam (Khomeini) in the Rushdie affair and then attempted to separate a religious fatwa from government policy. In the year before the Ayatollah died, Khomeini still personified the revolution but Rafsanjani reflected the state. Still the speaker of the Majlis commanded the support of the Islamic radicals through his unwavering personal loyalty to Khomeini’, Mackey, The Iranians, p. 359. See also Alnahas, Continuity and Change.

44. Bahman Baktiari, ‘The Governing Institutions of the Islamic Republic of Iran: The Supreme Leader, the Presidency, and the Majlis’, in Jamal S. al-Suwaidi (ed.), Iran and the Gulf: A Search for Stability, The Emirates Centre for Strategic Studies and Research, Abu Dhabi, 1996, p. 58.

44. Ibid., p. 54.

46. Moslem, Factional Politics, p. 150.

47. Rakel, Iranian Foreign Policy, pp. 170–171.

48. Ibid., pp. 171–173.

49. Ibid., p. 149.

50. Dariush Zahedi, The Iranian Revolution Then and Now: Indicators of Regime Instability, Westview Press, New York, 2000, p. 161.

51. Karim Sadjadpour, Reading Khameini: The World View of Iran's Most Powerful Leader, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2009.

52. Moslem, Factional Politics, p. 203.

53. Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Iran Chamber Society, at http://www.iranchamber.com/government/laws/constitution_ch01.php.

54. This group is also called the Second Khordad, taking their name from the date in May 1997 when Khatami was elected president. For details see Shaul Bakhash, ‘Reformists, Conservatives, and Iran's 2000 Parliamentary Elections’, in Joseph A Kechichian (ed.), Iran, Iraq, and the Arab Gulf States, Palgrave, New York, 2001, p. 16.

55. C. Matthew Well, ‘Thermidor in the Islamic Republic of Iran: The Rise of Muhammad Khatami’, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 26(1), 1999, p. 37. Also see Alnahas, ‘Continuity and Change in the Revolutionary Iran Foreign Policy’.

56. Beginning in a seminary in Qom in 1962, Khatami went through the rigours of a classical Islamic education—theology, Greek logic and Western philosophy. His horizons spread beyond Qom to the University of Isfahan and Tehran and the West. Also see Jahangir Amuzegar, ‘Khatami: A Folk Hero in Search of Relevance’, Middle East Policy, XI(2), 2004, pp. 75–93.

57. Khatami was not very radical. He had served as a minister of Islamic guidance under radical Prime Minister Musavi from 1982 to 1989. He had also served during Rafsanjani's first term as minister of Islamic guidance. However, he resigned in 1992 under strong pressure from conservatives. Khatami, with others, became more reformist or moderate in the late 1980s after establishing the Association of the Combatant Clergymen (Majma’-e Rouhaniyun-e Mobarez).

58. Quoted in Rakel, Iranian Foreign Policy.

59. Tehran Times, August 15, 1998.

60. Ray Takeyh, Guardians of the Revolution: Iran and the World in the Age of the Ayatollahs, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2009, pp. 198–199.

61. Ibid., p. 199.

62. Transcript of interview with Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, CNN, January 7, 1998.

63. Shahram Chubin, Whither Iran? Reform, Domestic Politics and National Security, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2002, p. 25.

64. New York Times, January 3, 1998.

65. Quoted in Rakel, Iranian Foreign Policy.

66. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has a PhD in traffic and transportation. He also served in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in the 1980s, and then as governor for a province. In the early 2000s he served as mayor of Tehran until elected president. For more about his background, see Abbas Pazuki, ‘Ahmadinezahad's background, his year in office’, BBC monitoring Middle East, July 17, 2006. See also Alnahas, Continuity and Change.

67. ‘Behind Ahmadinejad’, a powerful cleric’, Iran-va-Jahan, September 9, 2006, at http://www.iranvajahan.net/cgi_bin/news.pl?1=en&y=2006&m=09&d=09&9=1. (This article was originally published in the New York Times, September 8, 2006.)

68. Slavosh Ghazi, ‘Khamenei vows no retreat on Iran nuclear work’, Petroleum World, March 2006, at http://www.petroleumword.com/storyt06031502.htm.

69. ‘Khamenei Speech: Excerpts’, BBC News, June 4, 2006.

70. Quoted in Rakel, Iranian Foreign Policy.

71. In an interview Khamenei's adviser Shari'atmadari said that this new Council ‘includes Kamal Kharrazi, who served as foreign minister under the government of Mohammad Khatami; another former foreign minister, Ali Akbar Velayati, who is already the leader's special adviser on foreign affairs; former defence minister Admiral Ali Shamkhani; former trade minister Mohammad Shari'atmadari; and the director of Tehran's Centre for Contemporary Historic Studies, Mohammad Hossein Taromi, all appointed by the Supreme Leader’. BBC News, September 6, 2006.

72. BBC News, September 6, 2006.

73. M. Mahtab Alam Rizvi, ‘Rafsanjani Fading Political Fortune’, IDSA Comment, March 23, 2011, at www.idsa.in

74. C. Raja Mohan, ‘Assertive Ahmadinejad’, Indian Express, December 29, 2010. See also Jamsheed K. Choksy, ‘Ahmadinejad's Nationalist Attack on the Islamic Republic’, World Politics Review, September 27, 2010, at http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com//articles/6517/ahmadinejads-nationalist-attack-on-the-islamic-republic. ‘MP criticises vice president for misleading remarks’, Tehran Times, August 7, http://old.tehrantimes.com/index_view.asp?code=224323.

75. Tehran Times, ‘MP criticises vice president for misleading remarks’.

76. Thomas Erdbrink, ‘Ayatollah: Iran's President “Bewitched” by Senior Aide’, Washington Post, May 15, 2011, at http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/ayatollah-irans-president-bewitched-by-senior-aide/2011/05/15/AF7vOG4G_story.html?wprss=rss_homepage. Also see M. Mahtab Alam Rizvi, ‘Mounting Pressure on President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’, IDSA Comment, June 25, 2011, at www.idsa.in.

77. ‘Pressure Mounts on Iran's Hardline President’, Khaleej Times, June 1, 2011, at http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle08.asp?xfile=data/middleeast/2011/June/middleeast_June34.xml&section=middleeast.

78. After Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's election to office for a second term in 2009, a series of protests were organised against the backdrop of allegations of widespread rigging and fraud. Protesters used green bands as the symbol of their protest. Mir Hossein Mousavi, who had contested as president and came second to Ahmadinejad in the elections, is recognised as the leader of the Green Movement.

79. ‘Figures with Clean Slate Should Be on Principlist Unity Committee’, Tehran Times, August 17, 2011, at http://tehrantimes.com/index.php/politics/1708-figures-with-clean-slate-should-be-on-principlists-unity-committee. Also see http://www.mehrnews.com/en/newsdetail.aspx?NewsID=1384307.

80. MELLATEMA, June 28, at http://www.tehrantimes.com/Index_view.asp?code=243216. Also see http://www.mehrnews.com/en/newsdetail.aspx?NewsID=1376945. Also see ‘Iran's Hard-liners Seek Payback in Next Election’, Khaleej Times, August 17, 2011, at http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle08.asp?xfile=data/middleeast/2011/August/middleeast_August396.xml&section=middleeast.