"Guardians" of Iran

Reports from Iran after the adoption of the IAEA resolution resemble a rebus, indicating either an extremely subtle game, or elementary chaos in the country's leadership. Either the start of uranium enrichment is announced in defiance of the entire civilized world, then this statement is refuted. At first it is said that the Russian initiative to enrich uranium on the territory of the Russian Federation is no longer relevant, and then, as if nothing had happened, it is stated that the next round of negotiations on this issue will take place as scheduled and the only matter is to adapt this plan to the new ones conditions.

The version of the subtle game in this case is not very convincing. Firstly, the signals sent to the world community from Tehran are too erratic. Secondly, there is objective information that the ultra-hard position of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, which threatens to isolate the country, does not at all enjoy the consensus support of the Iranian elite. And the latter, in contrast to the “hard vertical” of Saddam’s Iraq, is quite pluralistic: it contains both reformers (for example, former President Khatami, whom the Western media nicknamed “Ayatollah Gorbachev”) and conservatives of various shades.

The victory of the conservative Ahmadinejad in last year's presidential elections was associated with a crisis of confidence in the reformers, who during the years of rule were unable to achieve success either in the economy or in the social sphere. Serious democratization did not follow (however, this is more likely not the fault, but rather the misfortune of the reformers, whose actions were limited by the conservative clergy led by the real leader of the country, Ayatollah Khamenei), but corruption increased significantly. It was believed that conservatives could present a coherent alternative to the stalled reform course, based on a combination of Islamic moral values ​​and economic pragmatism. Conservatives during the 1980s and 1990s advocated privatization and increased foreign investment.

However, it is not only reformers who are frightened by President Ahmadinejad's actions. What kind of increase in investment attractiveness can we talk about when the country was plunged into a systemic conflict with the West? It won’t take long to scare away existing investors. The current authorities clearly have no time for privatization: the president pays much more attention to the fight against world imperialism and Zionism. And the moral improvement of society was expressed in the plan announced by Ahmadinejad to persecute non-governmental organizations - the Ministry of Internal Affairs has already been instructed to compile a list of unreliable ones.

This development of events is mainly due to the fact that only one group of conservatives came to power in Iran, consisting mainly of veterans of the special services and paramilitary militia groups (the so-called “Basij”), in whose ranks the current president served in the 1980s . These people were formed during a period of life-and-death struggle against opposition both within the country and abroad. Thus, the current Minister of Justice was an assistant prosecutor in rebel Kurdistan, where extremely cruel sentences were imposed on oppositionists. The interior minister also began a career as a prosecutor in revolutionary Islamic courts, and continued in the intelligence services. And the foreign minister, while he was ambassador to Turkey, was asked to leave the country when his involvement in the murders of Iranian oppositionists who fled to this country became public. Even the Minister of Culture was for a long time one of the leaders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the elite units of the armed forces. It is not surprising that such a government, in a matter of months, erased all the positive foreign policy results of the era of Khatami, a staunch promoter of the idea of ​​a “dialogue of civilizations.”

But the president's capabilities are not unlimited. Already in August, the parliament rejected four ministerial candidates it proposed - three of those rejected were Ahmadinejad’s closest employees working in the Tehran mayor’s office. And this despite the fact that the legislative branch is currently considered a stronghold of conservative forces. Deputies rejected three presidential candidates in a row for the post of Minister of Oil, which is key in the distribution of financial flows. Only at the end of the year did they actually impose a completely apolitical manager on Ahmadinejad. We also note that the president, having carried out a personnel revolution at the top of the state apparatus, confirmed the powers of Gholamreza Agazadeh, who led Iran’s nuclear project during the entire period of Khatami’s rule: the president was also not allowed to manage this strategically important area. So the president’s support from both conservatives and Ayatollah Khamenei, who played a significant role in his election, is not unconditional.

It is clear that Ahmadinejad is attracted by the prospect of becoming a street idol in the Islamic world, the mood of which is clearly demonstrated by the scenes of recent days at the Scandinavian embassies in the Arab states. It is also clear that he especially wants to remain the idol of the Tehran lower classes, who voted for him without exception in the elections. But the Iranian elite, for the most part, have already become accustomed to Western standards of living, prestigious cars (not made in Iran at all) and other small joys that a “corrupt civilization” provides. Many of its representatives (and not only reformers) do not at all want to return to the half-forgotten, cruel times of the 80s for Iran, and do not intend to lead an ascetic life under sanctions.

It seems that now many, adhering to the official anti-Western rhetoric, will appeal to Ayatollah Khamenei to rein in his protégé. And in this situation, the Russian initiative to enrich uranium may be a chance for them to save face without entering into an irreversible conflict with most of the world.