In the name of God
To the honorable Mr. Khamenei:
Greetings. I had decided not to write to you again, because I felt that I had already said all that duty required in three private letters and one open letter over the past 15 years. Nothing more needed to be said. But now that an imminent crisis is breaking out in the country, I think saying a few more words to you will do no harm, though I have no hope that it will do any good either.
Mr. Khamenei,
Give up these strange and bizarre notions that the whole world is run by an invisible board of directors, and that this board, or as you put it, "the enemy," spends morning to night doing nothing but watching what you are doing in Iran and then plotting and scheming against you, the Islamic Republic or religious government.
You imagine that all the world's leaders also take their orders from that center. Believe me, the world is not like that. It has no board of directors. That imaginary enemy of yours does not exist. The peoples and governments of the world have their own work and lives to attend to, and Iran is a very small part of their concerns. Friendship with the world and pursuit of the Iranian nation's interests, peace and reconciliation: this is the path that will help this long-suffering nation, after 27 years, finally lay its head on the pillow of tranquility and at last emerge from "the present sensitive circumstances." But friendship with the world has its requirements, among them democracy and human rights. Don't say that others don't observe them and that these things are only demanded of us. Believe me, that is not so. First, few places in the world have a human rights record as bad as Iran's. Second, few political systems in the world are as undemocratic and one-man as Iran's. Third, why concern yourself with others? You treat our own people properly. Others will not be laid in your grave. Believe me, with these ideas your image in the world has become something on the order of Idi Amin or Gaddafi. It is a pity that the Iranian nation should suffer such an injustice. Come out of the shell of these ideas a little.
Mr. Khamenei,
Do you remember that when you became president, you were looking for a prime minister who would obey you? That is why you set aside Mr. Mahdavi Kani and made Engineer Mousavi, who in those days was a young man from your own party and a relative of yours, prime minister. It took only a year for it to become clear that whoever heads the government cannot, by the very nature of his responsibility, take orders every day from someone else outside the government. This is elementary in running any small organization, let alone a government and a country. You ran into problems with Engineer Mousavi, and had it not been for the Imam, you would not have made him prime minister for a second term. After becoming Leader, too, driven by the same craving and the same mistaken view of management, you gradually interfered in every matter. Over the past eight years you wasted the country's time. You brought the military and security forces into politics, and in the end you put a group in control of the country that would listen to you, so that, in the popular phrase, the government would become "uniform," or, to put it more precisely, so that all the pillars of government would become subordinate to you. But you saw that at the very first step, in the ninth presidential election, they set aside your candidate and pushed someone else forward, and under your pressure they have recently given him a second-rate post. And now they are heading down a road to nowhere. And of course this is only the first glimmer of dawn; wait until the full morning of your rule breaks.
Predicting the fate of the mirage you were awaiting in the form of a government obedient to you is not very hard and does not require great intelligence. The group that, thanks to your lack of foresight, has come to rule the country will inflame conflicts with the following segments of the country.
1 – The political factions that want to change the Constitution and the structure of the entire system, and which in this recent election proved once again that they are the largest faction in the country. Extremism toward these factions intensifies the climate of violence and makes the country's peaceful transition to democracy harder. In fact, the new rulers' use of violence against supporters of democracy makes the road of the country's inevitable transition to democracy rougher.
2 – The 2nd of Khordad Front (the reformist coalition named after the date of Khatami's 1997 election victory) and the spectrum that stretches from the national-religious (melli-mazhabi) forces to the Association of Combatant Clerics. Under pressure from the rulers' backing groups, the removal of all their supporters from jobs and posts, or, as Ansar-e Hezbollah puts it, the purging of "hypocrites" from the state institutions, will intensify the conflict with this faction and make the country's atmosphere more insecure.
3 – The government technocrats, most of whom belong to the first generation and the revolutionary era, and who over the past 27 years have in practice undergone an intellectual transformation. The slogan of returning to the policies and values of the early days of the revolution, especially in the demagogic form being put on display these days, contradicts in practice the knowledge and experience of this group; it will therefore lead to conflict with this power bloc and result in the resignation and withdrawal of many of them. Mr. Ahmadinejad's ministers will split into two camps. One camp, the more sensible ones, will in practice fall in line with the expert staff of the state apparatus, and will then clash with groups like Ansar-e Hezbollah and the Kayhan crowd, who are already beating the drum of purges and talking about the
presence of "hypocrites" in the government. The second camp will insist on the previously failed extremist policies, run into trouble with the executive body of the government and the state technocrats, and make a weak government even weaker. Take a look at Mr. Ahmadinejad's chief adviser, who was expelled from the Foreign Ministry under Dr. Velayati for extremism in these very matters. Now he wants to do the same things on the scale of an entire country.
4 – The traditional bazaar faction and the Islamic Coalition Party (Hey'at-e Mo'talefeh), which have effectively been sidelined since the election and which the ruling extremists also intend to eliminate. Although they have been thrown some concessions, the logic of the ruling military power will drive matters toward conflict with them. This struggle will first show itself in the Majlis and will then spread to the judiciary and some of the institutions under your supervision.
5 – The Society of Combatant Clergy of Tehran, the Society of Seminary Teachers of Qom, and the more traditional factions of the clergy. Especially since, at the very outset, Mr. Ahmadinejad has appointed as his adviser on clerical affairs someone who for years worked in the intelligence and security section dealing with the clergy. Moreover, the rise of clerics like Mr. Mesbah Yazdi, who lack standing in the seminaries and carry with them widespread hatred there, will intensify the rift between the clergy and the government. You saw its first manifestation in the recent session of the Assembly of Experts, where they sought to change the Assembly's electoral regulations in the hope of winning a majority in next year's Assembly of Experts election and then removing you. Interestingly, Mr. Mesbah Yazdi's group and the military men who back him harbor the same idea: they want, under the current regulations, to field their own mujtahids (senior jurists) in the election, win a majority, and pull the chair out from under you.
6 – You yourself and the Office of the Leader are the next center of conflict. When a group enters politics with guns, there is no reason for it to obey you or anyone else. Indeed, during the election, the candidate backed by you and the activists of your office was someone else, and he was dropped at the last moment. With regard to the ministers, too, they have ignored some of your suggestions from the very start. On the Foreign Ministry in particular, this group has gone its own way. From now on, too, rest assured that the more you insist on your ideal, which is interfering in executive affairs, the more powerless you will become. The genie you let out of the lamp has seized you by the collar before anyone else. You have no choice but to dismiss some of the military and security commanders who back Mr. Ahmadinejad and take military power away from them. You have begun doing this, but it is no use; you have tied your own supporting forces to them. By doing this you will create rifts in the ranks of these forces. Unfortunately, you have closed the democratic path and blocked the participation of the people and of popular institutions such as the press in politics, and over the past several years you have constantly suppressed and weakened them. If you continue down the path you have taken, you will have no choice but to meet guns with guns.
7 – The Ministry of Intelligence and the economic and security institutions affiliated with it are another problem. The assault by the parallel security organization to take over this ministry will provoke sharp reactions. The recent assassinations will be only a prelude to future troubles.
8 – The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is another arena of dispute. You know better than I do that the IRGC is not an organ of blind obedience; from day one it was founded amid ifs and buts. Despite repeated purges, the putschist gang that dominates it has no popularity among the IRGC's rank and file, and its main problem is with the rank and file and a large part of the IRGC's command. When the IRGC is drawn even further into political and economic power, these contradictions will intensify.
9 – The next crisis is with the world. Terrorist policies, saber-rattling at the world and childish extremism, good or bad, right or wrong, do not fit the general direction of the world. The new rulers' childish notion may be to form a terrorist front out of a segment of Muslims in order to upset the current order of the world. But as the past 27 years have shown, this yields nothing but the waste of national resources and the depletion of a country's strength. The world reacts, too. You saw how several years of the country's diplomatic efforts to win over Europe were lost within a month. The speech for Mr. Ahmadinejad that you yourself approved and corrected was ridiculed in diplomatic circles at the United Nations, and its result, within a short
time, was the resolution of the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency condemning Iran. Of course, your disregard for the requests of international circles for Ganji's release also had a great deal to do with this. Now all your hopes must rest on Russia, which has always swindled the Iranian nation more than anyone, while the heavy specter of sanctions hovers over the Iranian nation and country. And then it is not clear for whose vow we are supposed to pay all these costs. In the end, even if the whole world were turned upside down, nothing would come of it for us. We who are helpless in running our own country, who cannot solve a traffic problem, or air pollution, or corruption in the judiciary, what message do we have for the world? As the old saying goes, if we know how to dig, let us first dig our own garden and then tell others what to do. In any case, a new round of crisis with the world will put the people through a new round of hardship and misery.
10 – And finally, the greatest crisis and conflict is with the people. It is enough to look at just three of the various social groups: ethnic minorities, women and youth. All three have clear economic, social and political demands that various governments have wrestled with from time to time for 27 years, and these groups have always been content with some kind of compromise and backing down, without, of course, any fundamental thought being given to their problems. Now it is the turn of this new gang, which wants to wrestle with the demands of these social groups, and does so by putting one of the most notorious and fearsome intelligence figures at the head of the Interior Ministry, which bears the most direct responsibility in this area. Iran, at its various levels and among its various social groups, has become a storehouse of contradictions and accumulated demands, over some of which very bloody curtains have been drawn. It takes a great deal of patience, wisdom and discernment to steer the country, with deliberation, patience and good faith, through the present stage and lay its head safely on the bed of tranquility and democracy. The new rulers' actions will only tie a few tighter knots in the country's tangled and hopelessly knotted skein. The country of Iran and the forces within it are too big for a few upstarts newly come to power to swallow easily. Remember that people differ in their views in any case, and the uniformity you have in mind will never come about. In politics or any other collective endeavor, differences of opinion and taste are inevitable. You have two paths: either recognize these differences and regulate them by law, which is called democracy, or suppress them and demand that everyone be uniform, which ends up like Saddam Hussein's government, which was ineffective, so that the Iraqi nation was reduced to misery and the world fell upon it. Look at the disputes within the Seventh Majlis, or within this newly formed cabinet, to see why all that uniformization is nothing but a mirage.
Mr. Khamenei:
You have, in any case, 27 years of experience in running the country. It is hard to believe that you do not know that fighting poverty, discrimination and corruption, which is your slogan, cannot be achieved by staging shows and sitting on the floor. Simple living is a good thing, but not in front of cameras. That is called riya (ostentatious piety). Poverty in our country is serious. Per capita income has fallen by as much as thirty percent for every Iranian compared with 1977 (1356 in the Iranian calendar). But it cannot be remedied by increased oil revenues either, because such an increase can at most affect GDP by a small percentage. Until Iranians feel confident and invest and produce and raise GDP, in other words, until the wheels of the country start turning, the problem of poverty will not be solved. Bringing Iranians' per capita income back to the 1977 level requires a GDP of about three hundred billion dollars, more than twice the present figure. Oil revenue will reach at most 40 or 50 billion dollars, that is, 15% of the GDP needed to reach the 1977 per capita income. The rest must be produced by the country's industrial, agricultural and service sectors, in other words by the Iranian nation. For this, Iranians need to see a safe and calm environment, appropriate laws and sensible statesmen, so that they can confidently invest and produce in industry, agriculture and services. Look at the stagnation of the Tehran Stock Exchange or the property market, or the terrifying flight of capital from the country, to see how the country's economy and its people are reacting. Believe me, this is not the plot of some global enemy. It is the ABC of economics. See how, to solve the problem of poverty in society, you have gone in the opposite direction and brought to power a fighting-cock government that brandishes threats at the people and the world.
As for
discrimination, you will surely agree with me that the most fundamental remedy for discrimination is the rule of law. There must be clear and specific laws and a robust judiciary, and king and beggar must be equal before it, for talk of eliminating discrimination to have any meaning at all. Extra-legal institutions, and above all of them your own person, are the most important cause of the absence of the rule of law. Look at the past few years and see how the institutions associated with you have escaped all punishment. To take just one example, look at the Kayhan newspaper and the fate of all its insults and slanders, and see how it seems there is no one to turn to against it; it does whatever it wants to whomever it wants, and there is no authority to hold it to account. Or the fate of those who attacked the student dormitories, or the perpetrators of the chain murders, or those who tortured the district mayors and deputy mayors, and dozens of other examples. In nineteenth-century Iranian history there is a very interesting scene. When Naser al-Din Shah returned from his third trip to Europe, he gathered all his courtiers and said that what he had seen there was law, and for an hour he went on about the rule of law and the country's need for it. One of the courtiers relates that in that gathering no one dared to say: "Your Majesty, you yourself are the main cause of the absence of the rule of law." Now the story is yours. You, and they, talk of discrimination and fighting discrimination, but not one person says that as long as you and the office of Leader stand above every law and are accountable to no one, eliminating discrimination and establishing the rule of law are impossible. Don't say that the Assembly of Experts oversees the Leader, because it does not. All its members have passed through the filter of the Guardian Council, which is appointed by you, and in practice not a single case has been seen in which this assembly, even for appearances' sake, has publicly and before the nation criticized a single action of yours or of the institutions under your supervision. There is so much deviation and wrongdoing in the institutions under your supervision, such as state radio and television, the police, the judiciary, the Foundation of the Oppressed, the Headquarters for Executing the Imam's Eight-Point Decree, the Martyrs Foundation, the parallel security organization, the IRGC and dozens of other bodies. Yet, interestingly, not a single case has been raised so far. You can see why fighting discrimination is not feasible with the current structure and the concentration of power in your hands. And please don't fall back on the threadbare theory of the Leader's piety, according to which, if he lacks it, he automatically forfeits the leadership. Most of the actions and mistakes of a political leader fall outside the usual definitions of piety. For example, when you decide to crack down on the people in Kurdistan, the prevailing definitions of piety have nothing to say about that decision. Even if the worst crimes are committed there, not a speck of dust settles on the hem of this conventionally defined piety. Or if anyone who writes you a letter or voices a criticism ends up in prison and is deemed deserving of a conviction, no flaw is found in the prevailing definition of piety. Or take that famous policy of yours, according to which you believe the people must fear the government and the press must not embolden the people against the government. On the basis of this policy, in recent years you have shut down newspapers, imprisoned critics and created a wave of depression and disillusionment among the people, and yet, by the existing definitions, this mistake detracts nothing from your piety. That is because the prevailing definitions of piety revolve solely around observing religious rules, most of which belong to the personal sphere, while the most important social issues bearing on people's fate lie outside that circle. In the history of Islam there is a very striking scene. Some years after the martyrdom of the Commander of the Faithful (Imam Ali) and the establishment of Mu'awiya ibn Abi Sufyan in power, an old woman from Kufa, because of an injustice done to her son, went to Damascus and every day sought justice in front of the caliph's palace and raised an uproar. Finally, one day the caliph decided to speak with her himself. When the old woman spoke harshly even before the caliph and would not give up demanding justice for her son, Mu'awiya uttered a sentence in condemnation of Ali (peace be upon him) which, in my view, is one of the best descriptions of Ali's way of governing. He said: "May God curse that Ali who gave you a taste for opposing the government." Apparently today we owe Mu'awiya an apology. That wretched man did not brandish threats at the people as openly as you do today. Even more laughable is this "automatic" business. In a despotism-ridden country like Iran, where despotism keeps reproducing itself, even if you designed dozens of supervisory and control institutions for the people, there would still be the possibility of power becoming absolute and refusing to yield to the people's will, let alone when we have a boundless power like velayat-e faqih (the guardianship of the Islamic jurist), which can in fact do whatever it pleases and answer to no one, while the people have no way of removing it from power, overseeing it or criticizing it, and then we say that one day, should it lack piety, it will be automatically dismissed and come down from the seat of power.
As for corruption, which in the form of economic corruption, rent-seeking, addiction, prostitution and social corruption, and most important of all the erosion of moral values, has spread through the pillars of the country, all existing relations
need to be turned upside down. The government's interference in many areas must be reduced. But exactly the opposite path has been taken, and the government's interference is set to increase. Allow me to address just one item: economic corruption and rent-seeking. Certainly, to confront this scourge, in the short term the hands of economic rent-seekers must be cut off; in the medium term the country's economic structure must be changed from a state-run, statist economy to a private, free-market economy; and in the long term the other social relations that affect the economy must also be reformed and the roots of corruption eradicated from them. Now suppose a few people have turned up saying they want to fight economic corruption. Leaving aside the shows and theatrics, such as sitting on the floor, they must be able to stop rent-seeking. Can they cut off the IRGC's companies from the country's contracting work, the import of household appliances, oil deals, car manufacturing and dozens of other activities? Can they stop Mr. Mesbah Yazdi's quota of industrial sugar imports? Can they return to their owners the more than 5,000 real estate properties confiscated by the Headquarters for Executing the Imam's Eight-Point Decree, and put an end to the privileges that certain people have gained through this institution and similar institutions, all of which are under your supervision? Can they put an end to all the rents that Mr. Vaez Tabasi or Reyshahri or others enjoy in the name of the Imams and the imamzadehs (shrines of the Imams' descendants)? If they do, then you would have to make do with a limited government budget, transparent and clear, reflected in the budget lines and under the supervision of the Finance Ministry's comptroller. In that case, where would you get the money to pay stipends to seminary students, or to support pressure groups, or to cover the dozens of other expenses your office incurs? If Amir Kabir was able to close the road to theft in this country within three years, it was because he first took control of Naser al-Din Shah's budget and limited it, and only then went after the others. Although that great man paid for it with his life, at least he showed the right way. Do you think that, with the massive, organized rent-seeking that exists mainly around you and in the institutions under your supervision, one can talk about fighting economic corruption? In your view, how much do Mr. Ahmadinejad's comic shows, such as sitting on the floor in front of television cameras, have to do with a serious fight against corruption?
They say there is no remedy for what one brings upon oneself. You have brought this country to this state, and it is you who must answer for it. The task of people like me is clear. We seek to change the current Constitution and draft a democratic constitution based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We consider the starting point for this to be a free referendum, under the supervision of international bodies, to decide the fate of the current Constitution. To reach this goal, we have no choice but to organize civil resistance against the power-holders who stand in the way of this demand of the people. But I do not know what you intend to do. Surely you no longer believe the lies they have told about the people's turnout in the election. At least trust the confidential reports, and rest assured that less than 30% of the people took part in the election. If you do not believe in arguments from outside religion and do not accept the vote of the majority of the people, at least pay attention to arguments from within religion and to the fatwa of the majority of jurists. According to the fatwa of the majority of jurists, the right to govern is established for a jurist only when it is backed by the vote of the majority of the people. You are hostile to Mr. Montazeri and presumably do not accept his fatwa; what about Mr. Sistani? It is unlikely that the un-Islamic and irrational words of people like Mr. Mohammad Yazdi are acceptable to you or to any sensible person. He says that they regard the office of velayat-e faqih as a kind of divine appointment, and see their own task as discovering this divine appointment, not voting. Do you know what this means? It means, God forbid, that you or anyone else in this office becomes the equal of the prophets or the Shi'i Imams. Do you realize what a huge fraud lies hidden in this claim and how far it can be abused by charlatans? Be frank with the people. If you too believe in such claims, declare it openly, so that the people know how you regard yourself as a semi-prophet, a divinely favored one. Let the Shi'i jurists also know what you have in mind; then not only would obeying you be impermissible, but fighting you would become a religious obligation. And if you do not believe in these dubious claims of people like Mr. Yazdi, which I think you do not, then you have no choice but to obtain the people's vote for the legitimacy of your rule. And the people's vote can be obtained in a free election, not through a hand-picked Assembly of Experts. If only you had listened to the advice of reformers like Akbar Ganji, who call on you to stand in a free election and win the vote of the majority of the people, and had stepped aside if the people withheld their vote of confidence. If only, before it is too late, you would apologize to the people for all the contempt you have shown the nation, and step aside. The truth is that you have run the country very badly. I remember that when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, was driven out by force by the Allies, and his
country was placed under UN sanctions, you rightly criticized him in a speech and said: what kind of leader is this, who constantly drags his country into trouble and misery and puts his people through hardship? Now take a look at yourself and see where you have taken the nation and the country. I know that in your heart you laugh at these words of mine, and unfortunately you are drunk on the wine of power. You think you are riding high and have crushed your opponents. You are mistaken. The fate of continuing down the current path is clear. It has happened many times in the history of Iran and the world. Before it is too late, you can prevent further damage to the country by siding with the people. It is up to you.
And my success is only through God.
Mohammad Mohsen Sazegara
Mehr 1384 (October 2005)