Part 6: Life After Khomeini

Then right before the death of Khomeini, a series of changes of the Constitution were proposed to make the Islamic Republic run more efficiently and effectively. Given the conflict between Khamenei and Mousavi, the post of Prime Minister would be eliminated leaving only the President as the Head of Government. The Expediency Council would become an official body in the Islamic Republic to better mediate in conflicts between the elected Majlis and the unelected clerical Guardian Council. In addition, the requirements to be Supreme Leader would be loosened to allow any cleric to hold the position whereas before only top ranking Grand-Ayatollahs could qualify. Khomeini gave his approval to changes and they were passed in a referendum held during the same time as the July 1989 presidential election.

The change in requirements to be Supreme Leader was important because Khomeini was on his deathbed in 1989 and his previous heir apparent was no longer going to be the next leader of the Islamic Republic. Grand-Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri had been one of Khomeini’s most loyal followers during the revolution and was one of the strongest proponents of including Velayat-e Faqih in the constitution. However, Montazeri became increasingly disillusioned with the authoritarian nature of the regime and what he felt was the misuse of the Velayat-e Faqih as a mandate for dictatorship. Once designated to succeed Khomeini as Supreme Leader; Montazeri would fall out of favor with his onetime teacher and mentor.

The reign of terror was winding down due to the end of the Iran-Iraq war and the frail health of Khomeini. Just before the end of the war, Iraq launched a military campaign with the help of the MKO. The regime took the opportunity for one last round of executions of political prisoners in particular those associated with the MKO and thousands would be executed right before the end of the war. Although the executions were secret at the time, details would slowly emerge in the coming months about the scope of the executions.

Montazeri dared to speak out by publishing an open letter in which he criticized Khomeini for the executions and denial of basic rights to the people. Montazeri’s willingness to speak out demonstrated that the regime could no longer operate in the same manner as the initial revolutionary moment or during the war. Prominent members of the regime were no longer willing to look the other way at regime’s abuses since the external threat of a war with Iraq no longer justified it. As a result, the reign of terror would come to an end and the regime no longer had free reign to execute whomever it wanted. Yet the timing of Montazeri’s criticisms just a few months before the death of Khomeini meant that he no longer was going to be the next Supreme Leader as Khomeini bluntly told him in a letter, “you are no longer eligible to succeed me as the legitimate leader of the state”.

On June 3, 1989 Khomeini died at the age of 86 and the Islamic Republic of Iran had lost the man who had led its tumultuous first 10 years. With the new loosened requirements to be Supreme Leader, President Khamenei was elevated to the highest position in the Islamic Republic. As Supreme Leader, Khamenei went about adapting the regime to both its new constitutional changes and life after its charismatic first leader who had maintained order over the last 10 years.

Khamenei was only a mid level cleric and he was picked over many other higher ranking clerics. This lack of clerical standing would continue to haunt Khamenei with lingering questions about his qualifications to be Supreme Leader and his absolute power in the regime. Questions would also arise about the entire institution of the Supreme Leader since it was becoming an increasingly political and not religious role.

The new Supreme Leader and the newly elected President Rafsanjani began to further centralize power within the regime. Rafsanjani was primarily concerned about the economic direction of the country and set about rebuilding the economy in the wake of the Iran-Iraq war. He advocated free market reforms to spur economic growth after 8 years of heavy state control and rationing during the war. Although the state would have less control over the economy, Rafsanjani personally would have more power over the economy and other aspects of the state than his predecessors as president. The elimination of the post of Prime Minister and Khamenei’s relatively weak position as Supreme Leader compared to Khomeini meant that Rafsanjani would have tremendous influence in the regime.

In addition to Rafsanjani’s growing power, Khamenei and other conservatives argued that the recent constitutional changes were passed to centralize the command structure of the regime. In order to increase efficiency, the Supreme Leader should increase his ability to govern in any manner he felt appropriate. According to this logic, the constitutional reforms made efficiency the top priority of the state necessitating a strong Supreme Leader. Popular will and human rights become secondary concerns behind the effectiveness of the state in implementing its policies.

The radicals were opposed to this authoritarian view on the constitutional changes and started to increasingly challenge the ruling conservative faction of the regime. As Mousavi argued shortly after leaving office in 1989 "Imam [Khomeini] demanded ‘centralization in executive affairs,’ not the centralization of executive matter in the hands of one person who manipulates all resources, responsibilities, and finances without any accountability. The meaning of centralization is not that people in charge are not accountable, and may disregard opposition to their policies. If we give authority to anybody in government, we need to expect dissent and disagreement. Every person, including the [Supreme] Leader, in the government must be accountable to the law and act within the frame of the constitution".

Thus just a few months after the death of Khomeini, his disciples were already disagreeing about what he intended the Islamic Republic to look like.

At this point, Mousavi was out of office and the radicals had fallen out of favor with the conservatives running the regime. Mousavi’s old adversary Khamenei was now in charge of the Islamic Republic and Rafsanjani was the powerful new president. The radicals opposed both Khamenei’s desire to create a more authoritarian regime and Rafsanjani’s free market reforms, but now they had little power in the regime.

They were entering the political wilderness and would have to figure out a way to once again come to power in the Islamic Republic. As for Mousavi himself, he would leave politics dissatisfied with the direction of the regime, “in the last days of Imam Khomeini's life, I foresaw major changes in the government and predicted that I won't be there anymore”. Mousavi would reenter politics 20 years later only to have his prediction once again proven right.