The Supreme Leader

The decision about who would be the new Supreme Leader was up to a group of clergy called the Assembly of Experts. Rafsanjani went to work on them, using all his considerable political skills to get his old comrade named to the post. No matter that Khamenei was not considered an ayatollah, much less a marja. "Without Mr. Rafsanjani's support, Mr. Khamenei could never have become the Supreme Leader," says a source who was privy to the debates, but does not want to be quoted by name. "I witnessed how he worked night and day to convince the members of the Assembly of Experts and other senior clerics to support Mr. Khamenei. Even though Mr. Khamenei was not qualified to hold the position theologically, the Grand Ayatollahs agreed with Mr. Rafsanjani because they believed in him. It is fair to say Mr. Khamenei owes his position to Mr. Rafsanjani."

For his part, Rafsanjani became president and pushed through a new constitution that did away with the old, competing post of prime minister. (Mousavi retired from politics, until this year.) At the same time Rafsanjani strengthened the constitutional basis for the Supreme Leader to have the final decision on all major issues. But favors can be galling—especially for those who feel their authority could be undermined. A widespread assumption among Iran analysts in 1989 was that Rafsanjani had made Khamenei Supreme Leader because he thought he could control him. Khamenei probably suspected the same thing.

Once the two men held the highest offices in the land, the difference in their visions became clear. Rafsanjani's power base was among the merchant classes—"the bazaar," as they say in Iran. If he did not quite say, like some character from Wall Street, that "greed is good," he often gave the impression that that's what he believed. He put economic growth and development at the heart of his policies, and his family grew conspicuously rich.

Khamenei wanted instead to appeal to the Iranian masses. Since his early days immersed in scripture and poetry, he had loved to identify with "the oppressed," and he built his base of support in those institutions—the clergy, the military and the bureaucracy—where loyalty and obedience offered a path out of poverty. Since the war years in the 1980s, he had also forged close relations with the intelligence apparatus, perhaps convincing himself, as many a revolutionary has done, that the best way to prevent oppression is to eliminate enemies. In an article published last year in Foreign Affairs, Iranian dissident Akbar Ganji claimed that at Khamenei's very first meeting with cabinet leaders after taking his post as Supreme Leader in 1989, he put forth a "theory of terror" that would define his approach to security issues. "The majority of the people in the state are silent," he is supposed to have said. But "a selfless group of individuals can make the state endure by using terror."

Even if this were true, however, there was a complication. Iran had styled itself as an Islamic democracy, and, yes, compared with Saddam Hussein's Iraq or many other dictatorships in the Middle East, it was a bastion of relatively free expression. Its voters were given limited, carefully vetted choices, but there was some real competition. And what the ballot boxes showed in the 1990s was just how deaf the geriatric leadership and its hardline institutions had become to the changes taking place in Iranian society. Satellite television, which was illegal but commonplace, had offered a vision of a much wider world. Then came the Internet. Demands for greater freedoms and opportunities grew quickly in a population that was mostly under 30 and increasingly well educated.

When in 1997 the "reformist" candidate for president Mohammad Khatami, considered to have little chance by those who allowed him to run, wound up winning with a huge majority, the Supreme Leader perceived a threat. Khatami vowed to liberalize society and strengthen Iran's civil institutions, and for a brief time the winter of fear and repression seemed to have passed. But that Tehran spring did not last. Constant pressure from Khamenei—and also from Rafsanjani, operating behind the scenes to protect his vast interests—wore down the reformists and ate away at their credibility. So when Khatami announced his candidacy for a second term, it was literally with tears in his eyes, and even though he won, he operated in an ever more claustrophobic political space as supporters were shot or arrested or forced into exile.

The Supreme Leader, meanwhile, began turning to his second son, Mojtaba Khamenei, as his agent and enforcer. Some in the leader's house believe the 40-year-old cleric might one day inherit his father's position. But for now, Mojtaba has become the Supreme Leader's main conduit to the outside world, and an interpreter of what is happening on the street. "Mojtaba Khamenei thought that the reformists were betraying his father during the eight years of the Khatami presidency," says an ally of Rafsanjani who did not want to be cited by name. The fact that many of them had been activists and organizers of the popular uprising against the shah made them particularly dangerous. They knew how to work the streets. After Khatami's two terms, neither Mojtaba nor his father wanted to see them come to power again.

In 2005, Rafsanjani put himself forward as a candidate, looking to retake the office that term limits had made him relinquish in 1997. But whatever popular appeal he once had he'd lost among a populace who saw the old guard as corrupt and out of touch. Khamenei backed Ahmadinejad—the mayor of Tehran who was the son of a working-class family, a veteran of the Basij and the Revolutionary Guards and willing to kiss the Supreme Leader's feet. Ahmadinejad won.

In the four years since, taking advantage of billions in windfall revenues from high oil prices, Iran has restarted its nuclear-enrichment program, funded Hamas as it took over Gaza, and supported and armed Lebanon's Hizbullah in its 2006 war with Israel. Indeed, Ahmadinejad has regretted that Israel even exists on the map. And Khamenei has been pleased. According to a European intelligence source, early in Ahmadinejad's first term, the man leading the country's nuclear negotiations presented several options about how and how fast Iran's nuclear program should proceed. Ahmadinejad said there was only one option: full-scale industrial production. Khamenei's response: Yes, that's what we will do. Early last year, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is at the center of the negotiations to end or contain the Iranian program, decided to meet with Khamenei directly. As the two of them drank tea in Khamenei's home, Mohamed ElBaradei says he was struck by how Khamenei "was fully briefed about what was going on—and full of distrust about Western intentions."

When President Barack Obama reached out to Iran with a Persian New Year greeting in March, Khamenei responded that if the United States changed its behavior, Iran could change too, leaving the door open for further talks. But all that has been complicated now by the election and its aftermath. Was it in fact fraudulent? Privately, American officials say there are indications of fraud, but that they believe Ahmadinejad would have won anyway. Khamenei's loyalists may have calculated—or miscalculated—that crushing numbers would help marginalize all their rivals: the remnants of the reformist movement; Rafsanjani and his allies; the dissident Ayatollah Montazeri; and others. A lot of old scores would be settled, and the regime would be that much stronger going into negotiations with the United States. Insecure leaders often practice overkill, and wind up still more insecure as a result.

There is a poetic irony here, perhaps. The greatest internal threat to the regime in its entire 30 years may have been provoked by rulers who felt they had to steal an election they'd already won.

With reporting by Mark Hosenball, Michael Hirsh and Dan Ephron in Washington, and Kevin Peraino in Jerusalem. "Winter" translated by Mahvash Shahegh.

© 2009