War and Peace... and Internal Factional Movements Within the Iranian System

It is evident that the American-Israeli war on Iran had a direct impact on the positions of factional groups and the movement of their centers of influence within the Iranian system. The climate of war and confrontation provided the military and the hardline current with the opportunity to control decision-making within the Iranian system and marginalize other forces. The first step in the expansion of military control was the appointment of their candidate, Mojtaba Khamenei, to the position of Supreme Leader. Mojtaba was not the strongest candidate among his father’s sons due to the difficulty of advancing the idea of “revolutionary succession” within the competing factions inside the system. However, the assassination of Ali Khamenei, along with the first strike of the war, enhanced the military’s ability to impose Mojtaba as Supreme Leader, as other groups lacked the capacity to resist or reject this move at a moment when the very existence of the entire system was threatened.

With the continuation of the war climate and confrontational atmosphere, the military wing (the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and intelligence agencies) managed to seize control of the decision-making process regarding war and peace. This shift was later recognized by the American administration, after the IRGB sabotaged a memorandum of understanding reached between the political level and the Trump administration, which was signed by Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on June 19 of last year.

The presence of factions and blocs within the Iranian system has been evident since the establishment of the Islamic Republic in 1979. The forces participating in the Iranian Revolution of 1979 formed a broad coalition encompassing a diverse political and social spectrum, united by a primary goal: the overthrow of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s regime. The religious current, led by Ayatollah Khomeini from his exile in Paris, was the most prominent current participating in the revolution and the most organized and influential force in the streets. Khomeini relied on his long history of opposition to the Shah and on a wide network of mosques and clerics. In his book “Islamic Government,” Khomeini proposed the concept of “Velayat-e Faqih” (Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist) as an alternative to the existing system, establishing a religious authority to oppose the regime and issuing a religious decree legitimizing the overthrow of the ruling system for the devout.

The revolutionary front also included liberal political parties and forces, such as the National Front, and liberal and nationalist figures who sought to establish a constitutional democratic system that respected the law and freedoms and curtailed the Shah’s powers. The revolution also included organizations and parties from the leftist current, such as the Tudeh Party (the Iranian Communist Party), and other leftist armed factions like the Mojahedin-e Khalq.

After the victory of the Iranian Revolution in February 1979, the balance of power forced Khomeini to share power with non-religious currents, which became part of the new authority. At the forefront was the Iranian National Front, led by Mehdi Bazargan, who was appointed as the first Prime Minister after the revolution. Two of its members, Karim Sadjadi and Ebrahim Yazdi, held the position of Minister of Foreign Affairs, while another member of the Front, Abolhassan Banisadr, held the Ministry of Finance and was subsequently elected President in 1980.

At that time, Khomeini was paving the way to consolidate his control over the country and realize his vision of establishing an Islamic government under the “Velayat-e Faqih” system. He eliminated the “remnants of the deep state” of the Shah’s regime in security, the military, and intelligence. He established the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps two months after the success of the revolution, in April 1979, to serve as a parallel and alternative force to the regular army. At the end of 1979, Khomeini founded the Basij forces to protect the revolution and its political and religious system, and established the Islamic Party to serve as the political base for his regime.

Khomeini’s project to “swallow the Iranian state” might have taken longer, but the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq War in September 1980 accelerated Khomeini’s ability to control all levers of power and marginalize and exclude other forces.

Just as Stalin and Hitler saw wars and conflicts as opportunities to tighten their grip on the levers of power, Khomeini exploited the war with Iraq to consolidate his rule through mobilization and propaganda, accusing opponents of treason during wartime. Khomeini clashed with the elected president Abolhassan Banisadr after accusing him of poor performance in leading the armed forces during the Iran-Iraq War, leading to his removal from office on June 10, 1981, due to his opposition to the continuation of the war. Mohammad Ali Rajai of the Islamic Republican Party succeeded him as president. The Iran-Iraq War ended in 1988, after Khomeini had firmly consolidated his hold on power and authority became monopolized by the clergy. However, this monopoly, by the nature of power dynamics, gave rise to new factions within the system. Among the most prominent was Khomeini’s dismissal of his deputy, Hussein Ali Montazeri. The differentiation among factions within the system persisted, with competition for interests and influence, and the emergence of alliances within the system’s wings in the form of moderate, hardline, and pragmatic currents. This balance is regulated and guided by the presence of the Supreme Leader, who holds the highest authority in the country.

Contradictions among Iran’s system factions became sharply evident during the 2009 events, when massive protests erupted against alleged electoral fraud in favor of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the hardline candidate, who faced opponents from within the system: Mir-Hossein Mousavi, who served as prime minister for eight years in the 1980s, and Mehdi Karroubi, the former speaker of the Iranian parliament. The pattern of intra-system conflicts reappeared in 2013 with the disqualification of Hashemi Rafsanjani, who had served as speaker of parliament in the 1980s and as president in the 1990s. This disqualification also affected former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose candidacy was rejected in both 2017 and 2021.

In conclusion, the Iranian system is currently undergoing profound shifts in the positions of factions and interest groups within the power structure, marking a new phase of redistribution of power and influence centers within the system’s framework. In a centralized system saturated with religious and revolutionary ideology, the driving force of power is concentrated in the supreme leadership (the Supreme Leader and his affiliated institutions, such as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the National Security Council, and the Basij forces), supported by the state’s administrative apparatus. This does not necessarily signify the end of conflicts among factions and groups; rather, the logic of power in a closed system generates new groups and alignments even within the dominant faction itself.

Dr. Saleh Al-Saedi