Arash Aramesh

The powerful clerical establishment in Iran has been under increasing pressure by supporters of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for not taking a hardline position against the opposition and failing to give the government their full backing.

Hossein Shariatmadari’s June 15 editorial in Kayhan, a conservative newspaper considered to be Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s mouthpiece, criticized Iran’s Grand Ayatollahs for sympathizing with Seyyed Hassan Khomeini, the grandson of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, after he was forced to cut his speech short amid chants of “death to hypocrite” by pro-government crowds.

Shariatmadari asks, “Why is it that the great Sources of Emulation considered people’s objection to Mr. Seyyed Hassan Khomeini an insult to Imam [Khomeini] and his family and condemned it while they [Sources of Emulation] remained silent and sensed no threat when leaders of sedition [Mir Hossein Moussavi, Mehdi Karroubi, and Mohammad Khatami] and their supporters insulted Imam Hussein…and formed a coalition with hypocrites, Baha’is, monarchists, and Marxists against Islam and the revolution…”

Shariatmadari, who is Ayatollah Khamenei’s representative at Kayhan, asserts, “If they sensed the threat, then why didn’t they, as religious authorities, feel a sense of duty to fight this threat?”

Shariatmadari’s editorial is a clear indication that the hardliners in Iran are frustrated with the clerical establishment. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s insecurity and frustration with the religious elites stems partly from his own lack of religious and seminary credentials..

As the head of state in Iran, and the Vali Faqih, Khamenei rarely comes under direct criticism by the clerical establishment. The only Grand Ayatollah that openly criticized the Supreme Leader was the late Hossein-Ali Montazeri. He paid dearly for his dissenting views.

President Ahmadinejad, however, does not enjoy the same protections as Khamenei does. He has been openly and publicly criticized by Iran’s highest ranking clerics. The outspoken Grand Ayatollah Yousef Sanei went as far as calling Ahmadinejad a “liar” in a speech in the Mazandaran province last fall. Ahmadinejad’s only loyal supporter in Qom is Ayatollah Ali Nouri-Hamedani, the only Grand Ayatollah that congratulated Ahmadinejad after his victory in the disputed June 12 election. Hamedani’s unconditional support for the government has won him praise in the hardliner media such as Fars and Kayhan.

On June 13, organized mobs attacked the homes of Grand Ayatollahs Sanei and Montazeri, when former presidential candidate Mehdi Karroubi was meeting with Sanei and Montazeri’s sons. Qom’s police forces idly stood by as attackers damaged property and threatened to come back for more. Despite such harsh measures used against grudging Ayatollahs, the list of unhappy clerics is growing.

In addition to Sanei, who is the most fearless clergy critical of the government, other senior Ayatollahs such as Vahid-Khorasani, Moussavi-Ardebili, Bayat-Zanjani, and Dastgheib have attacked the government for its wrongdoings. Even the most conservative Makarem-Shirazi and Safi-Golpayegani criticized Ahmadinejad in the past year over a number of issues.

While the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps is gaining more power under a Khamenei-Ahmadinejad power plan, it is unwise to disregard Iran’s clerical establishment as an extremely important political class. The clerics have tremendous influence on the religious masses in Iran and the Islamic Republic derives much of its religious legitimacy from the support of clerics.