By Ali Safavi, Middle East Times
Friday, June 12, 2009
More than 99 percent of Iran’s presidential hopefuls have been disqualified by the Guardian Council suggesting that Friday’s elections in the Islamic Republic is set to be yet one more engineered farce as Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has already blessed the incumbent, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Only four candidates now remain: Ahmadinejad, a former prime-minister-turned-“reformer” Mir Hossein Moussavi, former Revolutionary Guard commander Mohsen Rezai, and former parliamentary speaker Mehdi Karoubi.

These “Four Horsemen” are true icons of conquest, war, famine, and death. They all share a common denominator, symbolizing their antagonism towards the Iranian people and vice versa. In fact, they all owned up to a small portion of their thefts and crimes when they threw pies at each other’s faces during recent televised debates. The otherwise dry and denounced state-run programming got a ratings boost when eager Iranians tuned in to watch officials of a widely reviled theocracy smacking each other in the face, revealing the state's secrets, which the Iranian opposition had already exposed in the years past.

Moussavi admitted that Iranians have a great dislike for the clerical regime: “What evil have we done against our people, that wherever I go I am greeted with protests?”
 
Ahmadinejad reminded everyone that during Moussavi’s tenure as prime minister, security forces instituted “Islamic” dress codes and even used scissors to cut men’s ties in government offices. Ahmadinejad also said his other rival, Karoubi, accepted a $300,000 bribe a few years ago, and ran secret prisons in the headquarters of the "martyrs' foundation" -- of all places-- in the 1980s. Karoubi returned the favor by accusing Ahmadinejad of offering a $700 million gift to his cohorts.

The extent of the crimes and corruption were, of course, greatly diminished. But, the severity of the public accusations was unprecedented and tells the tale of a faltering theocracy.

Indeed, it would be highly disingenuous to believe that these elections are little more than a charade. The most powerful authority in the regime is actually the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, who makes the final decisions on all-important state matters.

The Guardian Council (IRGC), whose six mullahs are handpicked by Khamenei, towers over an obedient parliament and screens all candidates. Elections in Iran are simply a veneer to veil a monumental power grab by the mullahs from millions of Iranians.

Moussavi, for example, was one of the founders of the Islamic Republican Party, which in the 1980s unleashed paramilitary forces on the streets to terrorize political opponents. As prime minister, he was a strong proponent of the war with Iraq, and was involved in the 1988 massacre of more than 30,000 political prisoners.
 
As the IRGC commander for 16 years, Rezai vociferously campaigned for the escalation of the regime’s secret nuclear weapons project as a strategic imperative. In November 2007, Interpol issued a warrant for his arrest because of his role in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires.

Karoubi, a Khomeini protégé and self-made billionaire, has also been involved in appalling state decisions as the regime’s parliamentary speaker. Among many other instances of exporting terrorism abroad, he had a role in the chaos initiated by the regime during the Haj pilgrimage of 1987 in Mecca, leading to the death and injury of several hundred people.

Khamenei has already implicitly endorsed Ahmadinejad for a second term. As recently as May 12, he declared, “We should elect those who have popular support and who live in a simple and modest way,” a clear reference to Ahmadinejad. Moreover, last August, he ordered Ahmadinejad’s cabinet to proceed with making “plans for the next five years.”

Even if Ahmadinejad is defeated, however, the winner is simply going to continue to execute the Supreme Leader’s decisions on the nuclear weapons program, meddling in Iraq, and other important strategic policies. These candidates have a proven track record in every single one of these fields. They have also expressed total allegiance to Khamenei, who is the cornerstone of their collective rule.

Instead of pinning hope on the candidates who will in the end hardly be different, Washington should consider reaching out to Iranian opposition groups. As a first step, it should follow Europe's lead in removing the terror label against the main Iranian opposition group, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (PMOI/MEK).
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Ali Safavi, a member of Iran's Parliament in exile, is president of Near East Policy Research, a policy analysis firm in Washington, DC.