Kavian - TD

Transition to Democracy for Iran - Part II

The Structure of the Islamic Republic Regime

A) “Republic”
The IR regime in Iran claims to be a republic. A republic is a type of government, where people have the power to make political decisions. In Iran, ordinary people have no voice in making important decisions about the economy or politics. The justification that the IR regime provides for ruling and the legitimacy it claims to have as a republic, go back to two referendums. The first one happened directly after the Islamic Revolution in 1979. The second one happened about a year later.

In the first referendum, the election committee, which was set up by revolutionary groups and had no independent or international oversight, intentionally made a very one-sided question. The question in the referendum was „do you want the Islamic Republic — yes or no?“

The monarch had already fled the country and the revolutionaries had taken over many governing functions. So, what else would the population vote for if not the only option presented? People never got any other choices, no other possibilities, no other options. The revolution had already happened. At the same time, Khomeini (the leader of the revolution) and his entourage never clearly specified what kind of government they were going to build. They never described its political structure. Khomeini gave many vague, conflicting and practically meaningless promises about ruling. Some of the most famous are:

I will make water and electricity free.
I will make this life good for you and I will make the next life good for you.
I will demolish the current government.
The US cannot do anything.

These are all surely revolutionary chants. But they tell us nothing about the method of governing. As a matter of fact, the IR regime never even bothered to figure out a proper way of governing until even today. After over 40 years, it has still stayed revolutionary. How long does a single revolution last? Why aren’t we done yet with the revolution, so that we can finally have a real political structure in Iran?

Khomeini even said many times that he had no intention of getting involved in politics and that Mullahs will continue to work on their theology in Qom and Mashhad. Obviously, that was a lie.

The second referendum at the end of 1358 in the Iranian calendar (1980 in Gregorian calendar) was on the constitution. This one was similar to the previous referendum. There was no parliament, where the representatives of the people would discuss individual laws and scrutinize them. In effect 6 mullahs and 6 lawyers wrote a bunch of laws as the new Iranian constitution. The people had no say in that. And then the referendum asked the people if they wanted that constitution, yes or no. Most people never even got to read the text. There is no meaning in a vote, if you don’t know what you are voting for.

The IR regime only pretends to be a republic and a democracy. The simple proof of this fact that they vehemently refuse to organize a new referendum today to ask Iranians if they still want the Islamic Republic regime.

B) “Islamic”
The second claim is that the regime is Islamic. We are not experts in theology, but that claim is also clearly only partially true, not fully. The most important point of religion is to provide guidelines on morality and moral behavior. One of the most important principles of morality is to respect the lives of people. The IR regime has consistently proven that it has no problem with killing and torturing innocent civilians. It has never bothered about morality or goodness. Lying, stealing, torturing and killing are absolutely normal, if it means that Ali Khamenei (the current “supreme leader”) can rule longer. None of these are moral activities. The IR regime only pretends to be religious. It only uses the pretense of being religious for legitimacy.

What is the IR regime exactly?

The Economic Structure of the IR Regime
We will first start with the economic structure, because that will help us understand the political structure better.

Rentier Systems

This is a system that uses an asset to make money without really working. That asset in Iran is mostly the petrochemical resources. Iran’s economic volume was around 240 bn. USD in 2022. From that around 65 bn. was from selling oil and gas. In the yearly budget that the Majles (Iranian “parliament”) announced, these numbers were reflected. Over 60% of the regime’s income is from selling oil, gas and its products.

In order to make 65 billion USD, the government of Spain would have to develop complex industries and provide high quality services because it has no native energy resources and imports oil and gas. The Spanish government has no available asset just to sell and enjoy its rent. Its income is nearly completely dependent on taxes. This means it has to develop the economy and the society to stay in power and earn taxes.

This is why the IR regime sees no reason to develop the economy in Iran. It sees no reason to provide an economic infrastructure for Iranian companies. It sees no reason to develop a financial market. It sees no reason to secure free trade. It has no need for that because of the oil money. Actually, a free market would be a competition to the monopolistic regime-owned businesses. Ideally, the income from the oil and gas industries should be invested for enhancement and advancement of the Iranian economy and society, like how Norway does that. The reason function and efficiency are less important to a dictator than loyalty of his entourage, is that an efficient government and a functional system would erase the need for a dictator.

The elites in Iran are made of a network of roughly 200 families that own the system. These elites are only interested in spending the oil money on themselves and staying in power to take more of that oil money. That’s how their children buy huge mansions in Canada and California, while 25% of Iranian children go hungry.

Obviously, a democratic political system would not allow the government officials to take the oil money for themselves. So, in order to take that oil rent without opposition or problem, the IR regime has developed an economic and political mafia system.

Economic Mafia

The term „mafia“ is used in movies to describe many kinds of criminal activities. But economists define the concept of “Economic Mafia” as an organization formed of 3 groups.

Elites among politicians and bureaucrats (the administration, Majles and the justice system).
Elites among mullahs.
Elites among the armed forces.

These groups work together with the main purpose of exerting a monopolistic privilege to appropriate rents from a particular industry or business in the country. They prevent rivals (in politics, bureaucracy and business) from achieving these benefits. They hold their illegal monopoly over these businesses by force and cause financial costs or inflict punishments on anyone who stands in their way. These punishments could be defamation campaigns, harassment, physical assault, assassination, etc.. To inflict these punishments, they manipulate the armed forces. In return, the organized criminals of the armed forces, who work with the mafia are paid well and are supported in their illegal activities by these politicians, attorneys, judges and bureaucrats particularly in the courts.

In this sense the IR regime consists of different groups of “rent seeking” and criminal organizations. Under the current leader, Khamenei, most of these groups have been aligned to his establishment and function under the disguise of Islamic ideology and revolutionary behavior. The lack of accountability towards the people results from the fact that the oil mafia does not need to compete with other political or economic groups for power. So, it has no reason to provide a better quality of social services.

There are no alternatives to this oil mafia, since it is the core of a semi-totalitarian government. This is the only government the people of Iran can have and we cannot change this government. We cannot change this mafia. The elections are practically meaningless. And so, the mafia doesn’t care about being responsible for improving the lives of the people. Over time its competence is lowered year after year through the lack of need for providing services in return for political power. And this is what we see today: the government fulfills nearly none of its important tasks.

But where do the Mullahs come in? The mafia system uses a network of corrupt Mullahs and celebrities to give the regime legitimacy. The role of Mullahs and Islam is to give the oil mafia a mask of legitimacy. In return, the Mullahs and celebrities benefit from the rent of oil and gas. They are the face of this whole system. You cannot see the oil mafia that is hiding underneath. You see only Mullahs, who then tell you that they represent god and they are telling you god’s words. Apparently, god’s words are that we should let Mullahs and the oil mafia steal tens of billions of dollars of oil money for themselves every year.

If all Iranians could clearly see the truth that this mafia exists and the whole government works only to steal the oil money, obviously people would have started to rebel against the system. Hence, in order to keep people blind and to hide the truth, the IR regime has developed the concept of „velayate faghih“ (in English: “Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist”) to pretend that our government is working on Islamic and revolutionary basis. They lie to us that all of our hardships are because of the US or other foreign countries.

The political structure that you see in Iran has been built to allow this oil mafia to steal as much oil money as possible. Of course, the best political structure for this purpose is a totalitarian dictatorship.

The Political Structure of the IR Regime

Semi-Totalitarian

A political establishment is an organization constructed to make political decisions and carry them out. A totalitarian regime cannot tolerate an independent lawmaking system, unconstrained parties, or free and fair elections. If we had free elections and free political parties, we would have stopped Khamenei from stealing the oil money for himself and using it for his sick ideologies. The Majles in Iran is a hand-picked group of servants of the oil mafia in the disguise of lawful representatives.

The meaning of totalitarianism is that generally the regime tries to create an ideal image of a “perfect human” using coercion, cooperation and propaganda. This image was used excessively during the defense against Iraq’s invasion of Iran. Boys as young as 15 happily sacrificed themselves and walked on mines to open the path for other soldiers. A totalitarian dictator wants to maximize its time in power, partly because the life of a dictator is not guaranteed. Rafsanjani (a former president), Mousavi (former prime minister and presidential candidate) and Karroubi (former head of parliament) were or are under house-arrest or have been killed by the regime. What would happen to Khamenei and his friends, if the IR regime is dissolved today?

But unlike what some might believe, the decisions made by a dictator are not simply based on his whim, random, or completely free. A dictator’s decisions are based on different scales and balances, an important portion of these is forced onto him by political organizations. Since a dictator allows only people he trusts into inner circles, a layer of protection forms around him, which is also an insulator from reality. Bad news, fiascos, and negative results are served in colorful platelets. Good news is blown out of proportion. After a long time, this produces an illusion of righteousness, but also an illusion of correct choice. It seems the key people are doing a good job.

But why do Khamenei’s friends stay loyal to him? The reason is that they are enjoying an income far above what they deserve. These are the people enjoying the rentier system. They do little work, but earn millions of USD every year. They weren’t put in power due to their abilities and see themselves not responsible. In a fair system, they would not be holding that position. They do not have the capacity or even the interest to solve society’s problems. This incapacity of the loyal government officials slowly erodes the capacity of the system to provide civil services. This is the current state of the Iranian government. Even its most basic functions have eroded, nothing works anymore. Many Iranian cities don’t even have functional power lines.

But exactly because Khamenei’s friends are loyal to him for the income they have, if that income is reduced, then their loyalty will also weaken. For example, let us say the minister of energy is loyal to Khamenei because he is allowed to import smartphones cheaply and sell them expensively. If there is a sanction on him, or if the international smartphone sellers or banks refuse to provide him services, then he won’t be as loyal to Khemeini. His loyalty is not in Khamenei as a person, but rather in the profit he has from being in Khamenei’s circle. We can use this to weaken the regime.

It should be mentioned here that the Iranian government is not a completely totalitarian system. It is mostly of course, but not completely. We still have voting, women can vote and be voted into the Majles. Of course these elections are mostly meaningless, but the mechanism for them exists. States and minorities have representatives in Majles. Local politicians are chosen by local voters, etc. Saudi Arabia is an example for a complete totalitarian system. There, voting doesn’t even exist. The existence of voting systems and mechanisms in Iran can greatly help in dissolving the IR regime, as discussed in later parts.

Dictatorships

There are four main types of dictators in general.

Benevolent Dictators
Tin-Pot Dictators
Totalitarian Dictators
Military Dictators

The Iranian government before the Islamic Revolution was a tin-pot dictatorship. The IR regime is a semi-totalitarian dictatorship. In a tin-pot dictatorship the dictator wishes only to minimize the costs of remaining in power in order to collect the fruits of office (palaces, Mercedes-Benzes, Swiss bank accounts). In a (semi-) totalitarian dictatorship, the leader maximizes power over the population.

As a tin-pot dictatorship, the Pahlavi regime didn’t get involved in the daily lives of the population or try to change the social aspects of the society too strongly. Unfortunately it was too soft in combating illiteracy and discrimination and it was too harsh against free political discourse. The best way to keep an oil mafia in power is to establish a totalitarian dictatorship. As such, the IR regime tries to force its will on every single aspect of life, even personal life. This is why we have no freedoms.

An important difference between the tin-pot dictator and a totalitarian regime is also how they build their economies and how they react to economic change or foreign pressure. What matters to us is the reaction of a semi-totalitarian dictatorship, like the IR regime, to economic pressure. Empirical and analytical research shows that a decline in economic performance leads to reduction of political repression in a totalitarian dictatorship. You can see this in the behavior of the IR regime. Every time they made some deal with the US and some sanctions were lifted and the regime had more money, there was more political repression. Every time there were more sanctions and the economy suffered more, there was less political pressure.

The Nature of the IR Regime

In summary we see that the elites running the IR regime have developed this political system to extract as much oil rent as possible. To do this, they have turned the core of the political apparatus into an oil mafia. The best way to ensure the rule of such a system is establishing a totalitarian regime. The role of mullahs has been to portray this totalitarian regime as not only legitimate but necessary for Iranians. In short

Economically, the IR regime is a rentier-system and an oil-mafia.
Politically, the IR regime is a semi-totalitarian dictatorship.
Ideologically the IR regime uses mullahs and Islam as a mask for legitimacy.

The first conclusion we can make from this knowledge is that we need to move past the IR regime and transition to an institutionalized democracy if we want to have freedoms. The totalitarian nature of this regime is fundamentally at odds with personal and political freedoms.

The second conclusion that is extremely important, especially for the opposition leaders, is this: economic pressure will mean that the IR regime reduces its political suppression. If the oil income is reduced, or if sanctions are put on the government and the industries that corrupt politicians use to make money, then the IR regime will become weaker. It will reduce its political suppression of people. This is true both for the whole system and for individual politicians. If we target individual politicians and convince the international community to put heavy sanctions on them, their loyalty to Khamenei will be reduced.

The other articles of this collection:

1. Institutional Democracy for Developing Iran

3. Conditions for Regime Change

4. Dissolving the Regime

5. The Transition Process

6. The Missing Link — A Consolidated Leadership

7. Developing Leadership through a Parliament in Exile

8. Legitimacy

9. The Roots of Laws in Modern Societies

References

Carles Boix (2013), The Foundations of Limited Authoritarian Government, READ HERE

Narges Bajoghli (2019), Iran Reframed - The Anxieties of Power in the Islamic Republic, LINK