Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani in Seven Historical Crossroads

Rafsanjani provides a somewhat official narrative of the Islamic Republic's events during the 1979 Revolution and the years of establishing and consolidating the Islamic Republic in his memoirs. This narrative, while differing from the account of totalitarianists (who want only Khamenei and the commanders of the IRGC to be seen as pivotal in forming the regime), still operates within the same process of excluding non-affiliated individuals, particularly those who had issues with Khomeinism during Khomeini's era. Beyond the historical narrative crafted by the founders of the Islamic Republic, Hashemi Rafsanjani has been a historical figure in the transformations of the Islamic Republic. I will briefly explain this influential actor in seven phases: Formation of the Revolutionary Council, 1979. No political cleric between 1963 and 1979 was more trusted by Khomeini than Rafsanjani. He was Khomeini's liaison with many political opposition figures and groups both inside and outside the country (including the People's Mojahedin Organization). Khomeini had a special affinity for him, which is why he occasionally tolerated Rafsanjani's bluntness in meetings and his disagreements with some of his opinions, despite Khomeini's spiteful, authoritarian, and self-centered personality. For this reason, Rafsanjani played a central role in the formation of the Revolutionary Council. Among the five initial figures of this council (Motahhari, Beheshti, Bahonar, Ardabili, and Hashemi), he was the most political and active. Figures like Ali Khamenei entered this council through his positive opinion and suggestion, as Khomeini did not have a long-term relationship with many of them (like Khamenei). The composition of members who later joined this council (national-religious forces and revolutionary clerics) indicates that most of them entered based on Rafsanjani's vision of governing the country through a combination of experienced national-religious forces and revolutionary clerics. Although Rafsanjani distanced himself from national-religious forces during the conflicts between Khomeini and his political rivals, he reconsidered after the decline of power in those confrontations and distanced himself from the conflicts of the 1980s and early 1990s. During this period, he also bid farewell to his ugly confrontations with individuals who did not align with the regime and clergy (men in ties and women who did not observe the hijab as envisioned by the clerics). Elimination of Political Groups, 1981 to 1983. After Mehdi Bazargan's resignation from the premiership (November 1979), the clerics close to Khomeini saw the opportunity to seize power completely. However, they faced two main obstacles: Abolhassan Banisadr and his coordinating council, and the People's Mojahedin, which had the most organized political structure. The elimination of Banisadr took a year and a half after he assumed the presidency, ultimately leading to his exit from the country under conditions that allowed for his arrest and trial. However, the People's Mojahedin and communist groups were not easily willing to leave the scene. Therefore, the government resorted to the physical elimination of them using its paramilitary and military forces. Over a two-year period, tens of thousands of supporters of these forces were arrested (and some executed), and thousands were killed in street clashes. In these clashes, individuals from Khomeini's supporters were also killed. The government did not distinguish between forces advocating armed struggle and those who did not, and many political activists associated with national-religious forces, nationalists, and communists who believed in the Islamic Republic (like the Tudeh Party and Majority Fedayeen) were also killed, imprisoned, and tortured. Rafsanjani, Beheshti, Khamenei, and Bahonar were at the forefront of those advocating for the complete elimination of opponents and critics of Khomeini and were leading this movement. With the assassination of Bahonar and Beheshti, this mission fell to Rafsanjani and Khamenei. Thus, these two, who survived the assassination of Islamic Republic leaders, emerged as the highest-ranking forces protecting the regime from the ashes of these massacres and took on high executive and official responsibilities. Iran-Contra, 1985 and 1986. Rafsanjani and his close associates, like Hassan Rouhani, can be considered the architects of the secret relations between the Islamic Republic and the Reagan administration. Rafsanjani needed weapons (Israeli) to manage the war, and the Reagan administration wanted to secure the release of American hostages in Lebanon and provide hidden resources to assist U.S. allies in Latin America (the Contras against the revolutionary government of Nicaragua). Thus, Iran-Contra was formed under Rafsanjani's direct guidance in Iran. Rafsanjani can be seen as the architect of Khomeini's 'heroic flexibility' in negotiations with the U.S. during the 1980s. However, at that time, the 'revolutionary' regime did not want this negotiation, which would be perceived as conciliatory and humiliating both domestically and internationally, to be conducted openly. Hope Najafabadi and Mehdi Hashemi, close to Montazeri, revealed this deal, and they received the result of their work through execution (without this revelation, the case of the murder of Shamsabadi would not have been opened like thousands of murder cases by revolutionaries before and after the revolution). Command of the Armed Forces, 1988 and the Five-Person Council, 1986 and 1987. While serving as the Speaker of the Parliament, Rafsanjani had two other major roles during the final years of the war and Khomeini's life: 1) He was appointed as the deputy commander-in-chief for war at a time when the Islamic Republic could no longer continue it, and Rafsanjani was effectively appointed as the commander-in-chief with the aim of ending the Iran-Iraq war, and 2) His presence in a five-person council (composed of Prime Minister Mousavi, Head of the Supreme Court Mousavi Ardabili, President Khamenei, Ahmad Khomeini, Khomeini's son and all-around office manager, and Rafsanjani) that effectively governed the country during Khomeini's old age and illness. In the massacre of thousands of prisoners in 1988, Khomeini's role as the issuer of fatwas and the role of the three-member commission (Ebrahim Raisi, Mostafa Pourmohammadi, and Hossein Ali Niri) as the executors of the executions are well-known topics, but the five-person council that governed the country orchestrated this crime against humanity. One member of this council retreated to Qom, allocating state resources to establish a university (Mofid, Mousavi Ardabili), another became a nominal member of ineffective and formal councils (Mir Hossein Mousavi, at least until 2009 when he ran for president), and the third quickly passed away (Ahmad Khomeini). Rafsanjani was the only figure who endured against Khamenei's totalitarian power and continually challenged him. Over a twenty-year period, Khamenei gradually took control of the institutions that were under Rafsanjani's power and influence (state radio and television, law enforcement, Ministry of Intelligence, Ministry of Culture, and Ministry of Interior). Therefore, after Rafsanjani's death, Khamenei and his children must have breathed a sigh of relief, but they do not realize that a figure like Hashemi was a buffer against many of the subversive oppositions against the regime, and his death will make them more vulnerable. Entry of the IRGC into the Economy, 1989. Rafsanjani, based on a realistic view of political power, understood well that the commanders of the IRGC and Basij would demand their special share of power and the economy of the country after the war. This demand had no relation to their success in the war, as the IRGC commanders had no significant victories after the liberation of Khorramshahr, and their repeated operations resulted in the death of tens of thousands of the country's youth. Rafsanjani knew that the IRGC members, most of whom were uneducated and came from marginalized urban classes, would not be satisfied with this position in the post-war era. Therefore, he opened the door for them into the country's economy by giving economic projects to the IRGC (in the form of construction headquarters, the most important of which was the Khatam headquarters established in 1989). The security forces, which were all previously IRGC members, also gained a share of the country's economy under this pretext. The IRGC's entry into domestic politics, contrary to the claims of reformists during Khomeini's era and under the pretext of fighting against counter-revolutionaries, was initiated with the positive view of both Rafsanjani and Khamenei. Thus, the attacks of IRGC commanders against Rafsanjani were partly due to their ingratitude towards someone who turned them into the fat and arrogant cats that today possess an economic empire. Friday Prayers of 1997 and 2009. The Friday prayer before the second Khordad 1997 elections was Rafsanjani's ultimatum to the right-wing faction and the military to avoid election fraud, an ultimatum that was not taken seriously in Kurdistan but brought Khatami to the presidency with public support against the leader and his candidate. Without Rafsanjani, the transfer of power to reformists or the left faction of the government during Khamenei's era would not have been possible. However, the Friday prayer of July 17, 2009, led by Hashemi Rafsanjani (again related to electoral fraud) was a kind of farewell to a government that Khamenei had made his own over two decades. Khamenei had spent two decades striving to construct a government independent of Khomeinism, and Rafsanjani was one of the last bastions that needed to be conquered. The Green Movement provided an opportunity for Khamenei and his associates to rid themselves of the nightmare of Rafsanjani (the one who had brought Khamenei into the Revolutionary Council, the Friday prayer leadership in Tehran, the presidency, and later the leadership, and Khamenei had always operated under his shadow), and they made the most of this opportunity. Rafsanjani was labeled as one of the leaders of the sedition or at least as a shortsighted elite; he was removed from the Friday prayer leadership and subsequently stripped of the title of Chairman of the Assembly of Experts. Disqualification in 2013. Even after the humiliations following the Green Movement and the pursuit and imprisonment of his children, Rafsanjani still felt the energy necessary to engage in executive affairs and to contend with the religious and military bureaucracy under Khamenei's command. For this reason, he nominated himself for the presidency without obtaining Khamenei's initial approval. However, the Guardian Council disqualified him as one of the founders of the regime, effectively signaling that his political life, from Khamenei's perspective and the existing security and military structure, had come to an end. Of course, he did not give up and, by assisting Rouhani (alongside Khatami, Nateq, and Hassan Rouhani), challenged the militarized Islamists and took the presidency from them. He played a key role in articulating the regime's economic bankruptcy (by announcing a one thousand trillion toman government debt) and in paving the way for reconciliation with a major power over the nuclear issue. He was the one who announced, "The government currently owes the people 500 trillion tomans. It also owes banks 200 trillion tomans, 50 trillion for participation bonds, and 200 billion for overdue wages of enterprises and contractors." (April 26, 2013) His opponents interpreted this kind of information as giving hints to the enemy to exert more pressure on the regime for nuclear reconciliation.