The Anxieties of the Revolutionary Sheikh; All of Mehdi Karroubi's Letters to the Assembly of Experts

Mehdi Karroubi's correspondence from house arrest continues. Before his recent letter to the Assembly of Experts, he wrote seven letters to the two presidents and members of this assembly. These letters, which began in 1998, mainly concern the elections of this assembly and the exclusion of the so-called leftist faction from it. A common theme in most of Mehdi Karroubi's writings and letters is the negative role of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani in the absolute consolidation of power by Ayatollah Khamenei and the elimination of the leftist faction. However, he has remained silent about the role of other key players from those months, particularly Ahmad Khomeini. In his letter to the Assembly, Karroubi stated: 'With this management style, the country has returned to the Qajar era.' On December 23, 1998, in a letter to Ali Meshkini, the president of the Assembly of Experts, he criticized the disqualification of leftist candidates and the amendment of the election regulations that transferred the approval of candidates to the Guardian Council. The Secretary-General of the Combatant Clergy Association suggested that the approval of candidates should be entrusted to the presidium of the Assembly of Experts or to religious authorities. In 2005 and 2006, he wrote two similar letters on the same subject to the president of the Assembly of Experts. Rafsanjani, as the then president of the Assembly, was the recipient of one of Karroubi's letters. However, the 2009 presidential election changed the tone and content of Karroubi's letters to the Assembly of Experts. This protesting candidate of the July 7, 2009 election reported 'sexual assaults' on detained protesters in 'detention centers' in a letter to Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, asking him, as president of the Assembly of Experts, to pursue this issue. On September 28, 2009, in another letter to Rafsanjani, he raised the issue of 'legitimacy crisis' and protested that the president of the Assembly of Experts had not criticized the 'conditions of the country' and had been 'absent' from the closing session of the Assembly. The treatment of Assembly members towards Ali Mohammad Dashti, who was voicing the demands of the protesters, and the labeling of the protests as 'fitna' in the Assembly's statement were among other issues Karroubi criticized in this letter. The performance of institutions under the leadership of the Islamic Republic, including state television and the economic activities of some of these institutions, were also among the issues Karroubi requested the Assembly of Experts to address. About a year later, a few months before his house arrest, on September 13, 2010, he wrote his last letter to the president of the Assembly of Experts during his freedom. The request for the Assembly of Experts to oversee the institutions under the Supreme Leader was the content of Karroubi's final letter. He criticized the activities of the IRGC in politics and economics, referring to the events following the elections and the suppression of protesters. Karroubi, who has written more open protest letters than any other political figure in the Islamic Republic, wrote 13 letters to Ayatollah Khamenei before his house arrest and one letter after it, with the earlier letters being less publicized at the time of their sending. Most of Mehdi Karroubi's letters to Ayatollah Khamenei also concern elections and objections to the efforts of his institutions to eliminate the leftist faction and create a more uniform governance. Some of these letters also relate to the status of political prisoners. He has also had extensive correspondence with Ahmad Jannati, the Secretary of the Guardian Council. In these letters and other historical narratives, Karroubi has spoken about the collusion of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the right-wing faction, and Ayatollah Khamenei to eliminate him and his like-minded colleagues. This theme has also been repeated in his recent letter and is not a new narrative in this regard. For instance, Karroubi stated in his book 'Letters' that during the third parliament, which he presided over, the meeting to draft the regulations of the Assembly of Experts was held in the office of the new Supreme Leader, contrary to the usual practice of being held in the parliament. According to Karroubi, in these meetings, oversight of the elections of the Assembly of Experts was entrusted to the jurists of the Guardian Council, who were themselves appointed by the Supreme Leader, thus creating a 'vicious cycle' that 'removed the Assembly of Experts from its position and rendered it ineffective.' In this election, most candidates of the Combatant Clergy Association were disqualified, and this group did not participate in the second round of elections for the Assembly of Experts and was effectively eliminated from it thereafter. This event, along with the subsequent exclusion of the leftist faction from the fourth Assembly, is the origin of most of Mehdi Karroubi's correspondence. These correspondences only discuss the period since the beginning of Ayatollah Khamenei's leadership and remain silent about the fateful months prior to that, namely the removal of Ayatollah Montazeri from the position of Deputy Supreme Leader. A critical letter from Karroubi to Ayatollah Montazeri has also been published in the book 'Letters.' This letter, which he wrote with Hamid Rouhani and Mehdi Imam Jamarani in February 1989, is viewed by some analysts, including Mohsen Kadivar, as 'the groundwork for the dismissal of the Deputy Supreme Leader.' Karroubi also wrote letters during Ayatollah Khomeini's leadership that have not been published in the book 'Letters,' including a letter against the Islamic Republic Party, which, according to Karroubi's close associates, was aimed at countering the 'monopolistic rule' of this party. Karroubi corresponded with Khomeini during his leadership, including a letter he wrote with Mohammad Khatami regarding the status of the war. However, some political figures have a different narrative and view this letter as stemming from Karroubi's efforts to strengthen Ahmad Khomeini's position and eliminate the obstructive faction of the Islamic Republic Party. For instance, Ahmad Montazeri, the son of Ayatollah Montazeri, recently stated in an interview with Hossein Dehghani that Ahmad Khomeini had a negative stance towards Mohammad Hosseini Beheshti and the Islamic Republic Party and had somehow created the conditions for Ayatollah Khomeini to issue the order for the dissolution of the party. The joint letter from Karroubi and Khatami to Ayatollah Khomeini regarding the status of the war is another unpublished letter from Karroubi. After years, the origin of Mehdi Karroubi's letters remains 1989, and he views the reason for his correspondence as concern for the status of the Islamic Republic from his own perspective. However, these anxieties of the revolutionary sheikh do not seem to resonate among the officials of the Islamic Republic.