Who's Got the Power?

An overview of the priorities influencing Iran's faction leaders.

President Ahmadinejad may grab most of the headlines, but he is simply the leader of one of three groups jostling for power in Iran.

First, there are the pragmatists -- so-called because they're very practical about what the regime must do to stay in power. They know the greatest problem is public anger over the economy. To fix it will take trade and investment with the West, and the pragmatists seem willing to sacrifice the nuclear program for better relations.

Not so the radical hard-liners, who still believe in Ayatollah Khomeini's dream of an Islamic paradise on earth. To them, the economy is trivial next to Iran's epic struggle with "the Great Satan," America. They also want nuclear weapons so Iran will no longer fear America's (and Israel's) nuclear arsenal.

Between these factions are the mainstream conservatives. This group is wary of letting the economy get out of hand for fear of losing even more public support. Yet they seem to want a nuclear weapon -- at the very least, to make the hard-liners happy. They've steered a middle course over the past 15 years, supporting terrorism and pursuing nuclear weapons, while moderating these courses just enough to allow feckless European and Asian governments to pretend that Iran is not dangerous.

		Pragmatists		Mainstream Conservatives		Radical Hard-Liners
Faction Leader		Former President Rafsanjani		Supreme Leader Khamanei		President Ahmadinejad
Priority: Fix Economy		High		High		Low
Priority: Improve Ties to U.S./West		High		Moderate/Low		Low
Priority: Nuclear Program		Moderate		High		High
Power Centers		Bureaucracy, Economic Ministries		Office of the Supreme Leader, Supreme National Security Council		Presidency, Parliament, Judiciary Revolutionary Guard
Current Status		Hanging On		First Among Equals		Gaining Ground

From Reader's Digest - August 2006

 

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