Rouhani and the Minister of Intelligence Threaten the Opposition

Rooz Online

Opposition to Hassan Rouhani’s nuclear diplomacy has elevated in the last two weeks to include demonstrations after religious events and the regular Friday congregational prayers. Last week also marked Rouhani’s strongest remarks against the opponents of his policies. Speaking to a group of provincial governors and officials in charge of the next Majlis parliamentary elections to be held in February, he told them not to heed to the “liars” adding that when the supreme leader spoke he did it out of duty as the leader that counselled but this did not mean that everybody should be marching to counsel the administration.

At the same time, the minister of interior announced that demonstrations over the nuclear talks were banned and that demonstrators would be forcefully confronted. The minister of intelligence took a different angle on the issue and revealed that some Majlis deputies were trying to remove him from office.

Addressing his opponents, some of whom are led by hardline Kayhan newspaper – whose chief editor Hossein Shariatmadari is directly appointed by no other than ayatollah Khamenei and who the president said claims that the chief executive enjoys a mere .6 percent of the majority – Rouhani compared their actions to the 8-year Iran-Iraq war and said some people did not want ordinary folks to feel the sweetness of life. “Now everybody is a specialist in law, in national security. But don’t lie to people,” he ridiculed the hardline critics.

“Many of you have been to the war fronts, and I too had the honor of being there occasionally. Many of you well understand political discussions, and I too have been in them. Sometimes diplomatic talks with the major world powers is more difficult, more complex and more frightening than the operations in the battlefield. Why? Because at the battlefield you either survive which is an honor or you die which is a greater honor whereas in this battlefield if you fail there will be a long historic regret and if you win there will still be some who will be critical and will play with our dignity,” he said.

Many commentators believe that the new level of opposition to Rouhani comes because of the groundwork that is being laid for next February’s Majlis elections, which may result in the diminishing power of the hardline conservatives. He spoke against institutions such as the military, the Revolutionary Guards, the national radio and television network etc. to take sides in the elections and promote a specific candidate.

The minister of intelligence also spoke to the governors and his message was that state institutions should not support a particular candidate, adding that some strived to remove him from office. According to ISNA student news agency, seyed Mahmoud Alavi said, “At the ministry of intelligence we do not confine ourselves to people’s past activities. A special council has been created to determine the qualifications of candidates and an independent cleric has been appointed to lead it. We have told him that he will be judged on the day of judgement for his actions. Some people will be called in for their past actions.” He continued, “Special bulletins with false news should not be created just because someone does not like an official and would like to remove him.” Elsewhere in his talk he said, “Some candidates are already defaming other candidates or they are inciting ethnic minority groups. I have ordered that such practices be confronted so that we do not end up with security challenges later.”

These political wranglings take place at a time when doctor Mohammad-Reza Aref, a prominent moderate national figure who at one time was the chancellor of Tehran University and a vice-president under Mohammad Khatami, among other senior positions, recently predicted that reformers would be the decisive victors in the next Majlis elections and that hardline supporters of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would not win any seats. On the other side of the political scale, hardline conservatives such as Mohammad Yazdi, who is the current head of the special Assembly of Experts that oversees the supreme leader – at least on the books – has said that he wants the hardliners known as Principlists to keep their unity and win the next Majlis again.

Kayhan’s editor reacted swiftly to Rouhani’s warning to the critics of his nuclear diplomacy and said that the supreme leader was not “advising” but issuing an order, which the government and the president had to follow. He said the demonstrations over the nuclear talks were legal. Shariatmadari is known to be an advocate of an authoritarian supreme leader.