By Chris Cook
If you look at recent events in Iran through the lens of oil, money and power you won't go too far wrong. I’ve been working with Iran for over five years now in respect of developing their oil market and financial system, and in the last year – post the Credit Crunch, which I predicted – I have had the chance to talk to key ministers, heads of state corporations, the chair of the Majlis energy commission, even clerics and merchants/bazaaris.
The power base of Khamenei/Ahmadinejad's faction is the Revolutionary Guard/Basiji and their economic base consists of the religious foundations known as Bonyads.
Unlike in the West, where governments are owned and run by the banking/financial system, in Iran it's the oil ministry that controls the purse strings and calls the shots. The Khamenei’ite faction has gradually been taking over key positions in the Oil Ministry and its myriad state corporations.
It should be remembered that when President Ahmadinejad gained power he was able to put in his own appointees as ministers except for the key oil ministry, where the Majlis twice rejected his appointments and appointed someone acceptable to the "Oil Mafia" more or less identified with former President Rafsanjani.
In the last couple of years we have finally seen a new oil minister appointed by Khamenei/Ahmadinejad. Most of the old guard - people like Kazempour Ardebili, who was for 20 years Iran’s OPEC representative, and several others of long standing in key positions - have "retired" or become "advisers".
Having finally wrested control after years of struggle of the oil revenues from the Rafsanjani etc faction, the Khamenei'ites are in no mood to give it up. President Ahmadinejad is, as far as I know, not one of the beneficiaries (being a genuinely honest and religious man), but is a useful appointee in the same way that Bush was a useful cipher for Big Oil, before Big Money reasserted control in the US.
My take is that the result of this election has been a Very Iranian Coup, and that the people in control are very much analogous to a less technocratic and unsophisticated type of "siloviki". Personally, I doubt whether this faction will be able to maintain and consolidate control, because they do not have the expertise to manage an unwilling bureaucracy. They also seem to have alienated the powerful Bazaaris, whose support was instrumental both for Khomeini in 1979, and for Ahmadinejad more recently.
I don't see any chance of a violent revolutionary struggle since the Iranian military are keeping out of it. This is an economic, not an ideological struggle.
The next phase in Iran will be fought on the economic battleground, provided President Obama is shrewd enough to stay out of it and not to allow the nuke Nationalist card to be played. Indeed, the friendlier and more helpful the US are, the more difficultthe new government’s position will be.
In respect of the economy, it was quite evident in January when I was last in Teheran, as the only non-Iranian speaker at a very high-level conference, that the "reformist" Western financial approach to privatise everything and fuel the economy with debt, has taken a big hit. Here the reformists are in exactly the same position as President Obama: they don't have a Plan B.
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Anyone with half a brain knew that the result of the Iranian election would be a foregone conclusion and that the Mad Mullah's candidate would win.
Indeed Supreme MM initially declared the result to be a "divine assessment".
After seeing public outrage at the cack-handed manner in which the result was rigged, there are reports that the Supreme MM has ordered an investigation into the re-election of Ahmadinejad
In any event, the MMs will decide, not the Iranian people. (Unless they revolt. Again).
Meanwhile Chris, I trust that you will prosper in your intimate dealings with the political and financial establishment of such a fine and upstanding country.
As for President Ahmadinejad being a "... genuinely honest and religious man", the same could be said about another dictator (let's call him 'Godwin') who was also true to his 'religion' and to his word: he promised to rid Europe of a certain people - and he very nearly succeeded.
This is business, Max, nothing to do with religion.
The nuclear threat never was a threat until the US made an issue of it after Fallujah, when they realised that it was Iran who had a veto over their ambitions in Iraq. It suits the present Iranian government for the US to make a big deal over it because that distracts domestic attention from the Iranian economy.
The last thing the Iranians are going to do is give up cheaply a nuclear card they have not the slightest intention of playing.
The US and Iran have far more in common than they do differences in fact. It's not the US who have thousands of kilometres of borders with an Afghanistan awash with drugs, and a Pakistan with over 100 nukes and a real prospect of Islamic nutters getting their hands on them.
The US should declare peace and flood Iran with dollars (if they'll have them) and technology. It's the surest way of attaining their policy objectives.
I think your business interests may have blinded you to the reality of the Iranian regime.
The fact that many 'religious' leaders and official are corrupt (like their counterparts in the Soviet Union, or Nazi Germany) is truly irrelevant. The leadership - and their core supporters (who number millions) are Islamist - and do believe in an Islamic Republic - and the spread of their kind of Islam. Hence their close sponsorship of Hamas and Hezbollah, support for Sudan, etc.
My Iranian friends of long standing (not business associates) tell me a different picture to the one you describe.
As for Khatami being a 'reformist'.... only as much as Khrushchev was a 'reformist' compared to the butcher Stalin. The Soviet Union still remained a totalitarian hell-hole.
You seriously need to get a moral compass.
For your information, in all the time I have been dealing with Iran I have not even remotely covered my costs.
You haven't been there, and I would bet that your long standing Iranian friends don't live there either.
With a few exceptions, most of those who are in power in Iran are no more Islamist than you are (say) Church of England, or Russia was "Communist" in the late eighties. They pragmatically support Hamas and Hezbollah as an anti-Israeli tactic. Spread Islamic revolution? You have to be joking. That's what Saudi Wahhabi fundamentalism is about.
I certainly don't need lessons in morality from people who worship Mammon and deify the market. The sharing of risk and reward that underpins Islam, also underpins all other organised religions, the difference being that Islam alone has not forgotten.
IMHO ethical is optimal, and you might learn something from taking an ethical approach instead of defending the indefensible.
I worship neither Mammon or the market, but both of these things are real - unlike the 'god' in whose name tens of millions are repressed and kept in a mediaeval mindset.
I'm confused by your final sentence as to what the 'indefensible' thing I am trying to defend is.
Your proximity to business community may be hindering your objectivity. As the old saying goes: can't see the forest for the trees.
I know that Labour people are a bit gullible but this takes the biscuit.
Iran will only be happy when it has nuclear weapons and can claim it faced down the Great Satan.
End. Of.
What evidence do you have for saying that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons? Having said that, the last thing Iran will do is give up cheaply an apparent capability to build them if they were minded to.
You are the gullible one, believing unquestioningly the MSM line which is a complete travesty.
Finally, do you think it is necessary to be Labour to post on Labour List?