The precarious revolution: unchanging institutions and the fate of reform in Iran: Iranian politics is a system made by the clerics for the clerics, and for their supporters who possess a near monopoly on the spoils of the revolution and the country's resources.

• Author: Kazemi, Farhad
• Position: Strong and weak states: cases of governance

The Islamic revolution of 1979 was the result of a grand coalition of diverse forces united against the ancient regime. (1) Although the religious dimension eventually became supreme, the revolutionary process was much broader: it included powerful secular and liberal forces that yearned for a democratic post-authoritarian polity, not a theocratic state. The clerics' eventual success in establishing an Islamic republic was largely a result of their ability to mobilize Shi'i religious institutions and focus on mass grievances against the Shah's regime.

The purpose of this article is not to analyze the process leading to the Iranian revolution. It is rather an assessment of the announced goals of the revolutionary regime and its successes and failures in meeting them. These goals have been stated in various forms. They were initially articulated through print, sermons and media routes during the period of revolutionary struggle. The revolution's charismatic leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and his lieutenants were the dominant and frequent articulators of these goals. Their ideas were subsequently enshrined in the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, in the government's domestic and foreign policies, and in statements before international forums and organizations.

The proclamation of regime goals were often preceded by a strong expression of moral outrage at the ancien regime for squandering the country's natural resources by using oil wealth to procure weapons, becoming a lackey of foreign powers, especially the United States, and favoring the rich and well-off over the poor and downtrodden. The revolution's goals emphasized the necessity of reclaiming lost cultural heritage, reincorporating concepts and practices from past traditions and promoting the notion of Islamic authenticity. The ultimate hope was the creation of a new Islamic man who was at peace with an observant religious society ruled by Islamic laws and precepts.

On the domestic side, the goals stressed the achievement of three interrelated desiderata: social justice (with a strong emphasis on justice for the underclass), economic self-sufficiency (autarky), and the proper economic balance of public enterprise, private initiative and cooperative ventures. In the foreign policy arena, the proclaimed goal was to ensure an independent foreign policy that was not tied to the rules and dictates of the superpowers or other dominant states. The proposed foreign policy maxim and the guide for behavior was the concept of "Neither East Nor West, Only the Islamic Republic." The interests of the Islamic state and its self-reliance were to serve as guiding norms. A corollary foreign policy objective was to export the ideas of the Islamic revolution to the world at large and to target the Muslim masses in particular.

To complement these goals, the regime introduced a variety of ideological postures, policies and actions in both domestic and foreign policy. In the domestic arena, efforts focused on the three broad and evolving categories of religious ideology, state institutions and social issues.

RELIGIOUS IDEOLOGY

Broadly speaking, Shi'i religious authority in both its individual and institutional form is decentralized, even dispersed. As a result, Shi'ism has never developed a monolithic tradition. Although at times of major national crisis disparate religious factions have responded with a common voice and policy, the Shi'i norm has been essentially more one of diversity than uniformity.

The case in point is the behavior of the clerics and their supporters during the revolution. Although clearly united in opposition to the Pahlavi regime--as were most other elements of the social order--the religious groups also displayed significant divisions and expressed differing perspectives on both the revolutionary process and the desired form of the final polity. In general, four different strands of thought can be singled out during this period. For lack of better terms and with the acknowledgment that the categories are not in all cases mutually exclusive, these strands of Islam can be grouped as Radical, Militant, Liberal, and Conservative. (2)

Radical Islam is identified with Ali Shariati, a Western-educated intellectual from a clerical family who espoused social revolution and the eventual creation of a classless Islamic utopia. His vocabulary was based heavily on Shi'i history and centered on the concept of martyrdom. Even though many of his ideas had roots in religion, he envisaged the creation of a religious society without clerical rule. Shariati's social revolutionary ideas and his mixing of Shi'i concepts with certain radical Western ideas appealed to a large number of the young intelligentsia and university students who were familiar with the West but who also had deep roots in traditional family lives and Shi'ism. It appeared particularly attractive to the underground guerilla movement of Mojahedin-e Khalq, a group that combined elements of both Shi'ism and Marxist history.

Militant Islam was promoted by Ayatollah Khomeini, who sought both a political and a cultural revolution resulting in a theocratic state ruled by and for the clerics. Khomeini practiced doctrinal innovation in Shi'i theology and considered violence a legitimate means to the ultimate goal of creating a theocratic Shi'i state, ruled by the omnipotent jurisprudent (faqih). Support for his vision came primarily from theology students, segments of the bazaar, elements of the clergy, and the petty bourgeoisie.

Liberal Islam is associated with Mehdi Bazargan, a devout university professor of engineering and eventually the first prime minister of the interim regime that followed the collapse of the monarchy. Bazargan believed that Islam could accommodate modernity; accepting and gaining strength from acculturation with the West without losing its essential core. He envisaged an evolutionary and non-violent path of progress. His supporters came from nationalist elements within the bazaar and among teachers, particularly those in pre-university levels.

Finally, those loosely identified as the followers of traditional Conservative Islam were led by the majority of established higher clerics who believed in strict societal observance of religious norms and practices. They wanted to assure themselves of the continued religiosity of society, the proper and unhampered functioning of clerical institutions, and the observance of religious norms and practices. Some of the clerics in this group had militant leanings, some not. Similar to Khomeini's militants, this group's social base was also concentrated in the seminaries, parts of the bazaar and among the petty bourgeoisie. The Militant and Conservative Islamic groups disagreed on the extent of allowable theological innovation, the degree of militancy, and the articulation of the theocratic goal. Beyond these, their social base of support drew from similar sources.

All four groups interacted with and received support from the rich tradition of populist Iranian Shi'i Islam with its powerful ceremonial and mobilizing force. These grand populist celebrations have always included elaborate religious processions on high holidays, passion plays based on the lives of religious figures, flagellation and bloodletting to commemorate the violent death of saints, and a vast array of rituals and symbolic public expressions commemorating martyrdom. These practices, organized and directed by mosques and other religious centers, benefited all Islamic groups and the larger political agenda of defeating the regime. It was not long before religious passion was transformed into anti-regime political action. Parallels were easily drawn between the enemies of the past and the current secular leadership in the government. The underlying symbiosis of religion and politics in Iranian Shi'i Islam was instrumental in ushering an unprecedented number of protesters to the public arena and eventually helping to topple the regime in 1979.

The fall of the Iranian monarchy exacerbated the endemic divisions among the four Islamic groups. While quite capable of effectively working together against a common foe, the monarchy's collapse created a new dynamic. All groups (including secular forces) vied for power and expected their fair share of the spoils. In one of the more interesting processes of power consolidation, the Khomeini militants slowly but purposefully eliminated all essential rivals from the scene. Among the first groups to be discredited was the secular intelligentsia, some of whom were organized in loose coalitions resembling political parties. Then the leaders of the Communist Tudeh Party, forced to make humiliating public and media confessions, were all sent to jail. The Party itself was soon banned and effectively prevented from operation. At about the same time, Shariati's Radical and clergy-less Islam was discredited and the Mojahedin were forced to go either underground or to exile abroad. Those who did not were systematically eliminated by swift regime action.

The process of discrediting Bazargan's Liberal Islam was not so simple. Liberal Islam, with its unusual mix of Shi'ism and Iranian nationalism, enjoyed an important historical past and some popular appeal. The regime, however, succeeded in marginalizing the movement by monitoring and controlling its activities, harassing its members, and occasionally jailing its leadership corps. Although until his death Bazargan continued to press for greater freedom under an Islamic umbrella, his group and followers were never able to become an important political force in the Islamic Republic. The concept of liberal Islam mixed with liberal nationalism, however, remains alive to this day and, depending on political circumstances and configurations, may be able to reemerge and assume a leading role in Iranian politics.

The fruits of...