On February 5, 2010, David Cvach, Mehdi Khalaji, and Ali Alfoneh addressed a special Policy Forum luncheon at The Washington Institute to discuss developments in Iran that may indicate either lost ground for reform-minded activists or cracks in the very foundation of the Islamic Republic. Mr. Cvach is political counselor for the Middle East at the French embassy in Washington, D.C. Mr. Khalaji, who wrote on the Supreme Leader’s potential to make political compromise in PolicyWatch #1628, is a senior fellow at the Institute. Mr. Alfoneh, who recently wrote on the Basij militia’s impact in Iran (PolicyWatch #1627), is a visiting research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. The following is a rapporteur’s summary of their remarks.

Mehdi Khalaji

Two key barometers of the growing divide between the Iranian government and people are the attitudes of the clerical class and the level of regime violence against the protest movement. First, the clerical establishment is very complicated and does not fit the neat “pro-government clerics versus anti-government clerics” division often assumed by foreign observers. Such a distinction cannot actually exist in Iran because Ayatollah Khamenei controls the entire establishment. Every imam in the country is appointed by the government. Those clerics who have recently been critical of the regime (e.g., Ayatollahs Ali Hossein Montazeri and Yousef Sanei) therefore have no significant influence in the establishment, and their offices have been shut down.

Instead, it is the mainstream pro-government clerics whose attitudes deserve the most scrutiny. These clerics are of two kinds. The vast majority are politically docile, distancing themselves from such issues while accepting the advantages of regime patronage. A much smaller minority are politically active and support Khamenei vociferously. In 2005, when President Mahmoud Ahmadinezhad first came to power, this smaller faction was very supportive of him and his hardline positions. Today, however, this characteristically loud group has fallen mostly silent when it comes to the president. As Ahmadinezhad’s popularity plummeted following the June 2009 election, these clerics recognized that it had become too risky to support him publicly and thus did not even send him notes of congratulations upon his victory. If observers begin to suspect that this faction’s support for the regime is eroding further, then Khamenei’s grip on power may become increasingly fragile.

A spike in regime violence also indicates growing fissures. The government has begun to arrest more and more people; currently, an estimated 4,000 political prisoners are being held. The government’s strategy of intimidation has revolved around arresting prominent public figures while torturing and executing relative unknowns. If the regime continues to raise the level of violence against the protesters, the implied message will be clear — Tehran is worried about its ability to control the political crisis. A violent crackdown would hurt the regime’s legitimacy and popularity with the Iranian people and may actually backfire. That is, if the Iranian people see that nobody is safe from the crackdown — not even Mir Hossein Mousavi’s advisors, or the family of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, or the son of the founder of the Islamic Republic’s judiciary system — then they will feel they have nothing to lose and will be even less afraid to protest.