The Revolutionary Guards in Iranian Politics: Elites and Shifting Relations by Bayram Sinkaya

Author:Bayram Sinkaya [Sinkaya, Bayram]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Political Science, General, Regional Studies
ISBN: 9781317525646
Google: kp3wCQAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 26270877
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2015-06-19T13:29:13+00:00

5.1.4 Burgeoning factionalism among the radicals

In the course of time, disagreements surfaced among the radicals over how to handle issues related to economy, foreign policy, social life, and the relationship of Islam to the government. 32 When challenges arose regarding those issues, Islamic radicals who were united in the centrality of the velayat-e faqih doctrine, supported Islamic precepts for the regime, and who were united under the leadership of Khomeini differed among themselves in addressing the challenges regarding those issues. 33 Yet, the radicals managed to avoid factional disputes in the early 1980s when the regime faced problems threatening its survival. Additionally, because the politically active clerics and the radicals were united under the leadership of Khomeini and the velayat-e faqih, and because they were in agreement about Islamification of the state, culture, and society and policies of self-sufficiency, ‘independence’, and export of the revolution, they put aside their differences concerning other issues in the first half of the 1980s. 34

As the threats to the survival of the revolutionary regime faded away and the radicals consolidated their power, differences and disagreements among the radicals resurfaced in the mid-1980s. Those disagreements, compounded by the difficulties that the Islamic regime faced in terms of the economy and foreign policy, resulted in internal dissension and factionalism. 35 The differences among the radicals either derived from different worldviews shaped by their socio-economic relations or by competing interpretations of canonical law. Khomeini was concerned with these divisions, especially among the clerics, which in his view threatened to harm the Islamic revolution. Because Khomeini and the radicals, who aimed to create a homogenous, religious, and classless society, discouraged the establishment of numerous parties the radical factions united and organized under only a few political organizations, such as the IRP and the Ruhaniyyat. In the absence of new political movements and major splits from those organizations, the burgeoning factionalism among the elites lacked any institutional base. Although the emerging factionalism lacked institutional bases, Rafsanjani admitted, in July 1986, the existence of ‘two relatively strong factions’ in the political spectrum in Iran. 36

In due course, the radical political leadership in Iran apparently divided into two groups starting from the mid-1980s: the ‘hardliners’ and the ‘conservatives’. 37 The hardliners dominated the Majles, the cabinet, and the revolutionary institutions. The leading hardliners were Hojatoleslams Ahmad Khomeini, Ali Akbar Mohtashami, Mousavi Khoeiniha, Mahdi Karrubi, Mousavi Ardebili, and professionals such as Mir Hussein Mousavi and Bahzad Nabavi. The conservatives, represented by Ayatollahs Mohammad Yazdi, Ahmad Jannati, Azari Qomi, Hojatoleslams Mahdavi Kani, Nateq Nuri, and Ali Khamenei, were in control of the Council of Guardians and of the judiciary. Apart from the hardliners and the conservatives, there was another political stream, considered to be pragmatist or moderate, and Hashemi Rafsanjani represented this faction. Ayatollah Khomeini remained above the factions and sought to maintain a balance between them. Nevertheless, each faction worked to empower it own position, citing the numerous statements of Khomeini.

The principal source of dissension among the emerging factions revolved around the economic foundations of the Islamic Republic and state intervention in the economy.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.