The Islamic Republic is a zombie regime. While Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei claims legitimacy not only from the ballot box but also from God, the Iranian public signal otherwise. A quarter century ago, the regime covered with Plexiglas the ornamental silver cage surrounding the tomb of revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to prevent Iranians from inserting dog excrement folded into worthless Iranian rial notes through the cage.
The Iranian public’s response to elections also signal a lack of regime legitimacy. The positions subject to election in Iran do not meaningfully change policy, so why the charade? Here, the answer is the desire by the regime to use voter turnout to claim legitimacy. Gullible Western journalists remain in Tehran where regime support is higher and repeat Iranian voting statistics uncritically but remain blind to the compulsion by which Iranians in peripheral provinces must show proof of voting in order to qualify for or keep government-funded jobs. Often, these Iranians register their disapproval by spoiling their ballots, a trend whose prevalence was so great that even Khamenei had to address it.
Another way to determine Iranian indifference to their regime’s ideology is a recent report submitted to the Iranian parliament on the use and prevalence of virtual private networks (VPNs) to enable Iranians to bypass web censorship. It found that not only two-thirds of Iranians use VPNs, but also that figure increases to more than 90 percent in universities and government research centers. Put another way, those closest to the levers of power best understand the emptiness of regime lies and ideology.
Questions over legitimacy will come to a head in Iran’s looming transition. Even if Khamenei was in good health, the lifespan of octogenarian ayatollahs is limited.
Frequent and widespread protests reflect illegitimacy more directly. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps might have repressed the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement but they cannot avoid its implication: Vast swaths of the public view the regime with disdain. Nor were the protests following Mahsa Amini’s death an exception. Since 1999, widespread protests against the Islamic Republic have become more frequent. Iranians took to the streets that year in response to newspaper closures and the brutality of a crackdown on protesting students. Two years later, Iranians protested rumors that the regime had ordered the national soccer team to throw a World Cup qualifying match to prevent mixed-sex celebrations. In 2009, election fraud sparked nationwide unrest. Over the past decade, Iranians have protested over labor, the environment, and corruption. Regionally, ethnic and sectarian discord also motivates more localized Kurdish and Baluch protests.
Questions over legitimacy will come to a head in Iran’s looming transition. Even if Khamenei was in good health, the lifespan of octogenarian ayatollahs is limited. Partial paralysis and recent cancer lower the odds of a longer life. In Iran today, discussion about succession is open.
Khamenei’s death will mark only the second transition in Islamic Republic history. When Khomeini died in 1989, he had the religious credentials and enough respect to enable him to appoint Khamenei to be his successor. He based his choice less on merit than political reality. Just a decade after the Islamic Revolution, factions rived the regime. Khamenei was a compromise candidate, attractive because of his relative weakness.
Thirty-five years later, both he and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps control business empires worth hundreds of billions of dollars. The regime might base its rhetoric in religion, but for many revolutionary elites, financial interests are a greater concern.
Iranians once considered Ebrahim Raisi to be a shoe-in for the supreme leadership. He had the CV, in terms of not only religion and politics but also financially as custodian of the multibillion-dollar Astan Quds Razavi. Critics who know him personally say that his rise to the presidency, however, reflected more an ability to reflect Khamenei’s desires rather than solid intellect of his own. Many Iranians in the know consider him an empty vessel if not stupid. Khamenei succeeded to the supreme leadership from the presidency and Raisi’s placement in the presidency was an open audition that he now fails.
The regime might base its rhetoric in religion, but for many revolutionary elites, financial interests are a greater concern.
Iranians again suggest that Khamenei might instead try to have his son Mojtaba Khamenei succeed him. Like Ali Khamenei in 1989, Mojtaba lacks advanced religious credentials, but Mojtaba today has the most important qualification: The Revolutionary Guards trust him not to interfere in their finances. The Revolutionary Guards’ endorsement will be the most important determinant for the next supreme leader.
A family transition, however, would be the ultimate stake in the vampire’s heart. Khomeini and Khamenei once railed against the decadence and illegitimacy of hereditary rule under the shah. They accused the royal family of putting power and the purse above justice, competence, and the good of the Iranian state. Should Khamenei make his legacy an attempt at replicating the shah’s hereditary rule, no future regime leader could defend regime principles with a straight face. Khamenei might try but, should he do so, he might discover Iran has more in common with Egypt and Libya than he is willing to admit.
