U.S. and Iranian Strategic Competition: Iran’s Perceptions of its Internal Developments

With the assistance of Adam Seitz of the Marine Corps University, the Burke Chair has compiled a series of chronological reports that focus on Iranian perceptions of national security and assess Iran’s intentions concerning competition with the US. A link to the reports on Iran’s social and domestic political developments can be found here:

https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/legacy_files/files/publication/Internal%20Politics_Contents_Final.pdf

The latest version of these reports is entitled “U.S and Iranian Strategic Competition: Iran's Perceptions of its Ballistic Missile Program and Competition with the US and the Gulf, Sept. 2010 – Feb. 2011,” and is available on the CSIS web site at https://www.csis.org/analysis/us-and-iranian-strategic-competition-0. Previous versions include “U.S. and Iranian Strategic Competition: Iranian Views of How Iran’s Asymmetric Warfare Developments Affect Competition with the US and the Gulf, Sept. 2010 – Feb. 2011” (https://www.csis.org/analysis/us-and-iranian-strategic-competition-2).

The Iranian government’s statements and actions provide considerable insight into the country’s strategic competition with the US. They help show how the regime perceives and responds to external pressure and its relationship with the international community. The regime’s rhetoric regarding its “soft war” against external cultural influence and domestic liberalism as well as laws such as the proposed Supervision of Members of Parliament bill provide key insights into the changing nature of the regime and its outlook.

For example, the Fars News Agency published an article on Dec. 21, 2010 that accused the US and the UK of hatching plots for “confronting Islamic values.” The article contained quotes from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and IRGC Commander General Mohammed Ali Jafari, both of which make explicit reference to “soft war” as a method to undermine the Islamic Republic:

Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei had also on many occasions warned about the enemies' soft-war plots hatched to undermine Iran's resolve towards progress. In November 2009, he underlined the necessity for proper measures to repel enemy's soft war against Iran.

"Today, the main priority of the country is to confront (enemy's) soft warfare which is aimed at creating doubt, discord and pessimism among the masses of the people," Ayatollah Khamenei said, addressing a large and fervent congregation of Basij (volunteer) forces at the time.

Also, in July, Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Major General Mohammad Ali Jaffari warned the Iranian youths against enemies' soft war plots, and called for further preparedness to confront soft threats against Iran and the Islamic Revolution.

"We are in a soft war with the enemies. Their (enemies') plans and hidden and clear moves in this regard are distinctive," Jaffari said.

The articles in this report reflect the history of political developments within the Iranian government, as well as the general outlook and priorities of the regime. They also reflect an increasingly authoritarian, hard-line set of attitudes, as well as the regime’s tendency to link internal unrest to what it perceives as external ideological threats – including the US. Additionally, they help provide insight into Iran’s foreign policy goals, actions abroad, and how it perceives competition with other states.

These articles reveal that the progressively more authoritarian and hard-line set of attitudes of the Iranian regime have important implications for the country’s strategic competition with the US. Faced with mounting internal pressure and criticism, the regime has responded by purging moderates within the government and aggressively suppressing domestic opposition. The regime has concurrently adopted an apparent intransigence regarding its nuclear program in addition to stepping up its support for paramilitary proxies in other countries such as Afghanistan and Lebanon. In light of these developments, the Iranian regime’s authoritarian response to internal dissent correlates with the country’s increasingly defiant, aggressive disposition abroad.

These statements also show that three central themes have come to dominate Iran’s internal politics since Sept. 2010:

  • Pressure on the opposition movement and its renewed activity in the wake of protests across the region.
  • Efforts on behalf of the ruling establishment to eliminate moderates and conservatives from the country’s decision-making process.
  • The regime’s increased focus on what it deems a “soft war” against alleged influence and meddling on the part of the foreign “enemies” and internal dissenters.

 

Opposition Movement

It is important to understand the forces that have driven these themes.  Renewed crackdowns on Iran’s opposition movement indicate that the regime is no less willing to crush reformist or liberal criticism and dissent than it was in 2009 when the country was rocked by widespread popular discontent, protests, and riots that followed the disputed summer presidential elections. Following renewed Iranian unrest in the wake of the protests that have swept the Middle East, the leaders of Iran’s reformist Green Movement, Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, were placed under house arrest and later imprisoned. As of April 4, 2011, they remain imprisoned incommunicado along with their spouses in Tehran’s Heshmatiyeh prison.

Both Karroubi and Mousavi were initially placed under house arrest and later imprisoned following unrest that broke out in Iran during an unauthorized gathering by opposition members to show support for protesters in Egypt and Tunisia on Feb. 14, 2011. The rally was the first major public gathering staged by the opposition since the unrest following the 2009 presidential elections, and it quickly turned into an anti-government demonstration in which protesters chanted anti-government slogans and set fires. The Fars News Agency called the protesters “hypocrites, monarchists, ruffians, and seditionists.” In reference to the unrest, PressTV, Iran’s state-owned English language news service, quoted Iran’s Prosecutor General, General Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, as stating that, “today, this movement has gone beyond sedition and turned into a counter revolutionary one.” Gholam-Hossein also claimed that the rally was staged by supporters of Karrubi and Mousavi as well as members of the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization, a well-known terrorist group in Iran. Lastly, PressTV and other media continue to deem both Karroubi and Mousavi leaders of a “sedition movement” instead of the “opposition.” Such rhetoric and the regime’s readiness to arbitrarily imprison opposition leaders reflect the regime’s intransigent disposition toward Iran’s opposition. These responses indicate that the regime does not apply a conciliatory approach to criticism and dissent, nor does it examine popular grievances. Instead, it continues to resort to heavy-handed tactics in response to what it perceives as internal threats to its security.

New Legislation

These internal developments have had a significant impact on Iranian legislation. In late 2010, a bill was drafted in the Islamic Consultative Committee with the approval of the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei which would severely curtail the independence, relevance, and effectiveness of the Iranian parliament. The Supervision of Members of Parliament bill would allow the Guardian Council to arbitrarily conduct disciplinary action against of members of parliament if they dissent against or disagree with the regime and permit the establishment of a special branch of the judiciary to process “violations” by members of parliament. Under the new law, penalties could include being denied three months of pay, removed from parliamentary committees, made to sign written commitments not to repeat the “charge,” and even being removed from their posts altogether. It would also place general travel restrictions on members of parliament.
According to Article 20 of the proposed bill, "judicial investigation and the member's non-conviction will not prevent the implementation of decisions made by parliament or the committee regarding his or her violations." The ability of the parliament or a relevant committee to render punishment on any member of parliament for a “violation,” regardless of his or her guilt, can be interpreted as a means of coercion to control the parliament rather than a tool to supervise its members’ conduct. It must also be noted that that the Guardian Council is chaired by Ahmad Jannati, a notoriously hard-line cleric who is close to Iran’s “ultra-conservative” president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. As such, this law could have far-reaching effects on Iran’s government in that it would degrade the independence and integrity of the Islamic Republic’s only democratic institution to the end of centralizing power.

The Iranian opposition’s response to the Supervision of Members of Parliament bill is revealing in showing the internal tension and turmoil that has rocked the country since mid-2009. On Oct. 23, 2010, the official news website of Iran’s pro-reform Green Movement released an open letter written by one of the country’s main opposition politicians, Mehdi Karroubi, in opposition to the Supervision of Members of Parliament bill. The letter presents a sharp criticism of this legislation which Karroubi claims would effectively destroy what is widely seen as Iran’s only democratic institution, and become an instrument for political oppression. Karroubi stated the following in the letter:

“…supervision of parliament in a democratic and Islamic system is not only to be welcomed, but is necessary and of the greatest importance.  This supervision must not become an instrument in the hands of the opponents of democracy and the people's will, and of those in power.  It would in that case become devoid of significance and turn into its own contradiction.  Efforts to restrict and weaken the position of parliament in the name of supervision and the protection of the public good are not of course unprecedented in this country.  The opponents of the people's will have at all times sought to restrict and weaken the position of parliament and the nation's representatives and, as we have seen in our contemporary history, at times tried using Russian guns and soldiers and at other times through extensive disqualifications and electoral fraud, to turn parliament into a state-made and merely formal institutional.  It was for this experience that with the victory of the Islamic Revolution there was a great deal of reflection when the constitution was being drafted and amended, in order to find a way to prevent parliament being turned into a formal and state-made institution.  The Guardian Council was considered as a supervisory body, so that just as the influence of the court and state was a barrier to healthy elections in the past, this time in the Islamic Republic the parliamentary institution would be kept safe from rulers' interference.  Yet, the Guardian Council, especially after the imam's demise, increased the scope of its supervision of parliamentary elections.  This is so much that it effectively became a body disruptive of the constitutional order and a barrier to the people's will.  Today, the popular representative must effectively be declared chosen by members of the Guardian Council before being elected by the people.  They must first go through the filter of the Guardian Council members' preferences so they can stand for public election in the next stage.  Thus, what should have been done with the goal of realizing the people's rights and preventing interference by the power has effectively and in time become the opposite.”

Additionally, Karroubi stated that,   

“The ratification of a law in parliament whereby parliamentarians have to declare their travel plans before going and having no right to travel even without permission, and threats to their immunity by a particular committee, mean turning the people’s servants into the humble servants of power… If such a bill were ratified, we might as well mourn the demise of parliament in the Islamic Republic system.”

The introduction of such bills as well as their endorsement by Supreme Leader Khamenei signal a push for greater centralization of power and an ever-decreasing tolerance for criticism and dissent from within the government. The drafting of this bill can essentially be seen as an attempt to legitimize suppression of those who oppose or question the regime’s actions, including “pragmatic” conservatives such as the Ali Larijani, the Chairman of Parliament, and Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani who was until recently the Chairman of the Assembly of Experts.

Rafsanjani was replaced in this capacity in early March 2011 by Ayatollah Mohammad Reza Mahdavi Kani, a candidate backed by Iran’s “ultra-conservative” President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. This development can be seen as a clear victory for Iran’s increasingly hard-line establishment. A harsh critic of Iran’s brutal crackdown on protesters following the presidential election of 2009, Rafsanjani represents a more moderate, pragmatic voice within the Islamic Republic in contrast to its increasingly authoritarian, heavy-handed establishment led by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

These changes to Iran’s decision and law-making process reveal a power shift toward the hard-line leaders of the country’s government, and again have implications for Iran’s strategic competition with the US; they point to the potential monopolization of the state’s institutions by Iran’s hard-liners. An increasingly authoritarian regime dominated by the country’s hard-liners that can suppress not only liberal, but moderate and less conservative voices within the government is more likely to take an aggressive, confrontational approach to strategic competition with the US, and less likely to make concessions regarding international concerns such as the country’s nuclear program.

“Soft War”

The use of the term “soft war” is also revealing. Ever since the unrest that followed the 2009 presidential election, the regime and the Iranian press have focused their attention on an alleged “soft war” that is being waged against Iran. As used in context, the term “soft war” has variously referred to Western cultural influence and the emergence of secular or liberal Islamist elements in Iranian society. At a conference to study and oppose “soft war” at the Imam Hossein Officers and Guard Training University in Oct. 2010, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s representative to the IRGC, Hojjat ol-Eslam val-Moslemin Ali Saidi, articulated this notion as follows:

“In every election enemies support the secular and liberal people. The appearance of impure ideas creates conditions for the soft war… One of the main problems is in Islamic government there are two different views about various issues such as government legitimacy, the vice-regent’s prerogatives, foreign policy, culture, and economy. One view is comprehensive, fundamental, and revolutionary and the other is minimalist, superficial.”

Furthermore, he closed his speech by stating that,

“Today the enemy has joined forces with the thinkers of Liberal Islam. The sedition of 88 [2009] brought the system’s prestige into question and we saw even some of the small nations spoke for us. We had the power but the recent episode dealt a heavy blow to the system’s prestige and credibility.”

Other government and military officials have made similar references to “soft war.” On Dec. 21, 2010, the Fars News Agency published an article that accused the US and the UK of hatching plots for “confronting Islamic values.” The article contains quotes from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and IRGC Commander General Mohammed Ali Jafari, both of which make explicit reference to “soft war” as a method to undermine the Islamic Republic:

Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei had also on many occasions warned about the enemies' soft-war plots hatched to undermine Iran's resolve towards progress. In November 2009, he underlined the necessity for proper measures to repel enemy's soft war against Iran.

"Today, the main priority of the country is to confront (enemy's) soft warfare which is aimed at creating doubt, discord and pessimism among the masses of the people," Ayatollah Khamenei said, addressing a large and fervent congregation of Basij (volunteer) forces at the time.

Also, in July, Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Major General Mohammad Ali Jaffari warned the Iranian youths against enemies' soft war plots, and called for further preparedness to confront soft threats against Iran and the Islamic Revolution.

"We are in a soft war with the enemies. Their (enemies') plans and hidden and clear moves in this regard are distinctive," Jaffari said.

These statements seem to equate liberal or secular movements in society with US and Western influence as it uses the term “soft war” interchangeably to refer to what it sees as both internal and external challenges to Iran’s political system. Regardless of the validity of these claims, this rhetoric indicates that the regime perceives US cultural influence as a source of domestic unrest and an ideological threat at the very least. The use of the term “war” to describe this perceived ideological battle is revealing; it reflects not only Iran’s defiant, aggressive disposition toward the US, but also its continuing intention to compete with the US on all fronts.

Conclusions

Taken together, these developments point to an increasingly obdurate, authoritarian, and hard-line government in Tehran that will likely continue its competition with the US. By enacting laws to suppress conservative and moderate voices in government as well as placing hard-liners in key government posts, the regime is containing those who would be more likely to compromise with the international community and entrenching itself against any further opposition.    

Iran’s efforts at secrecy make it difficult to interpret internal social and political developments with a high degree of detail. Recent domestic legislation, the regime’s suppression of any and all opposition, and statements made by high-ranking officials in Iran’s political and security establishment, however, make it clear that the regime is becoming more authoritarian, and less likely to adopt a conciliatory approach in its relationship with the international community. As such, Iran will in all likelihood continue to engage and compete with the US strategically for the foreseeable future.

Lastly, it must be noted that a budding sense of domestic insecurity may be driving the regime’s recent efforts to centralize power and crush domestic opposition. Increased centralization of power and suppression of dissenting political forces are historically characteristic of increasingly unpopular and unstable regimes. It is indeed very likely that actions taken by Iran’s hard-liners to quash dissent derive from a sense that their grip on power has become progressively more precarious as a result of widespread discontent with the regime. Such a situation could have ramifications for Iran’s competition with the US in that the regime may aggressively posture itself abroad in an effort to seem more stable than it really is. The more unstable and unpopular the regime becomes, the more likely it is to adopt an increasingly aggressive, confrontational approach toward the US in an attempt to feign strength.

 

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“The Islamic Republic After 32 Years.” Voice of America. 1 April, 2011 http://www.voanews.com/policy/editorials/119099709.html

“Mousavi, Karroubi in Heshmatiyeh Prison: Opposition Website.” PBS Frontline: Tehran Bureau. 28 Feb. 2011 http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tehranbureau/2011/02/mousavi-karroubi-in-tehrans-mohtashamiyeh-prison-opposition-website.html#

Dareini, Ali Akbar. “Iran Protests: Hundreds of Thousands March, Tear Gas Fired.” The Huffington Post. 14 Feb. ’11 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/14/iran-protests_n_822991.html

Dareini, Ali Akbar. “Iran Protests: Hundreds of Thousands March, Tear Gas Fired.” The Huffington Post. 14 Feb. ’11 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/14/iran-protests_n_822991.html

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“Iran To Take Tougher Action On Sedition.” PressTV. 28 Feb. ’11 http://www.presstv.ir/detail/167543.html

“Iran To Take Tougher Action On Sedition.” PressTV. 28 Feb. ’11 http://www.presstv.ir/detail/167543.html

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“Karrubi Warns Iranian MPs Against Bill Designed to ‘Weaken’ Majles’ Position.” Rah-e Sabz. 23 Oct. ‘10

“Karrubi Warns Iranian MPs Against Bill Designed to ‘Weaken’ Majles’ Position.” Rah-e Sabz. 23 Oct. ‘10

“Karrubi Warns Iranian MPs Against Bill Designed to ‘Weaken’ Majles’ Position.” Rah-e Sabz. 23 Oct. ‘10

Cowell, Alan. “Rafsanjani Loses Key Post in Iranian Religious Assembly.” The New York Times. 8 March ’11 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/09/world/middleeast/09iran.html

Cowell, Alan. “Rafsanjani Loses Key Post in Iranian Religious Assembly.” The New York Times. 8 March ’11 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/09/world/middleeast/09iran.html

“Supreme Leader’s Rep. To IRGC Comments On Differences Between Clerical Groups.” Iranian Students News Agency. 27 Oct. ‘11

“Supreme Leader’s Rep. To IRGC Comments On Differences Between Clerical Groups.” Iranian Students News Agency. 27 Oct. ‘11

“Commander Warns of US, British Plots for Confronting Islamic Values.” Fars News Agency. 21 Dec. ‘10

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Anthony H. Cordesman

Anthony H. Cordesman

Former Emeritus Chair in Strategy

Alexander Wilner