The Myth of Choosing Between 'Bad' and 'Worse'

Note--Mohammad Shariatmadari, head of Hassan Rouhani's election headquarters, in response to a teacher's protest regarding the imprisonment of labor activists at a national conference of Rouhani's cultural headquarters, says: "Do you think if Qalibaf, who was the police chief, and Raisi, who was the head of the judiciary, become president, the number of imprisoned teachers will decrease?" (ILNA, April 24, 2017) This question is of a rhetorical nature, implying that the speaker assumes the imprisonment of teachers and frightens the audience about an increase in imprisoned teachers to sway dissatisfied teachers to vote for Rouhani. The same argument can be made for students, journalists, dual nationals, and managers of imprisoned Telegram channels and their protesters, suggesting that if "two more" come, the number of imprisoned individuals will increase. Other forms of repression also become tools for normalizing the "status quo" instead of becoming sources of complaint and change, as "two more" are more repressive. A Very Difficult Choice In this one sentence, Rouhani's campaign head, besides frightening the audience, implicitly expresses the differences among the three main candidates: Ebrahim Raisi, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, and Hassan Rouhani. The other three candidates have neither a chance nor a seriousness to obtain this position, of course without mentioning the identity of the person who is working for him. Qalibaf, the head of the Islamic Republic's police, was involved in the repression of cultural, artistic, and media figures in the 1980s (by the Office of Places and the Information Protection of the Police) and was one of the enforcers during the street repressions of July 1999. Ebrahim Raisi was a member of the four-person committee that decided on the execution of prisoners in 1988, and Rouhani was a member of the Supreme Defense Council and Secretary of the National Security Council (before taking the presidency). In this context, Rouhani bears more responsibility for the deaths of more individuals (alongside Khomeini, Hashemi Rafsanjani, and Mohsen Rezai) compared to Raisi and Qalibaf, as the policy of continuing the war in the Islamic Republic after the liberation of Khorramshahr (1981 to 1987) and the recapture of occupied territories led to the deaths and injuries of hundreds of thousands of Iranian youth and defenseless people in bombings and missile strikes by Saddam, and tens of billions of dollars in damages without any result for the country, and of course the expansion of the IRGC and the facilitation of repression during wartime. During the Iran-Iraq war, Rouhani held multiple responsibilities, including membership in the Supreme Defense Council (1981 to 1987), membership in the Supreme Council for War Support and Chairmanship of its Executive Committee (1986 to 1987), Deputy Command of the War (1983 to 1985), Head of the Central Headquarters of Khatam al-Anbiya (1985 to 1987), and Command of the Air Defense of the country (from 1985 to 1991). Instead of awarding medals to war commanders (including Rouhani), they should have been tried for the continuation of the fruitless and damaging war years of 1981 to 1987. The IRGC still finds the remains of the missing casualties from those years and circulates them in cities, burying them in squares, universities, and cultural heritage sites to place people in the emotional atmosphere of those years without accepting any responsibility for sacrificing Iranian youth in the sacred realm of expansionist Islamism. After the war, Rouhani held security positions until 2013. Ignoring the above military and security backgrounds, he introduced his main rival (Qalibaf) as a colonel and himself as a lawyer in the 2013 debates, while there is no record of Rouhani working as a lawyer or attorney unless we consider all Shia clerics as lawyers due to their study of jurisprudence (equating astrology with astronomy). Therefore, in this election, people are not forced to choose between a good cop and a bad cop in police regimes, or between bad and worse in authoritarian regimes, but rather must choose between a repressive police, a murderous judge, and a high-ranking security/military element. Which one and why? Proponents of participation argue that it is better to choose the high-ranking security/military element to prevent further repression from the murderous judge and butcher police, while opponents of the boycott believe that the high-ranking military/security element has been a close ally of the other two for the past four decades, and the difference is not in ideology and policies but in jobs and positions within a totalitarian authoritarian and religious system. Rouhani is someone who has the capacity to send thousands to the battlefield to occupy another country (up to the liberation of Karbala and Quds) and will have the same capacity under special conditions for the regime. Today, this is being pursued in Syria, and according to officials, 2,100 of the forces dispatched by the Islamic Republic have been killed in this country. This is what makes the choice between him and his rivals very difficult. Identities That Do Not Change One of the sayings that is well-known among Russians is that once someone becomes a member of the KGB, they will always be a member of that organization. This means that some organizations take away individual identity from individuals and give them an organizational identity that they cannot escape from. This saying also applies to members of the IRGC and Shia clerics. They are trained in such a way that cultural, ideological, and behavioral separation from those organizations is almost impossible. How many IRGC members and clerics do you know who have separated from those jobs and completely transformed into a different person in terms of ideology, behavior, character, and lifestyle? Qalibaf, even if he gets a pilot's license and wears his white suit from 2005, is still a Basij and IRGC member because when he sees protesting youth in the streets, he resorts to violence. Rouhani and Raisi, despite four decades of executive and judicial responsibilities, have never abandoned the clerical attire and have continued the same literature and behaviors of Shia Islamists (totalitarianism and authoritarianism) while holding government positions. Raisi, even if he has carried bags of flour from the Astan Quds Razavi to people's homes for years or Qalibaf hands out cash to the unemployed, cannot forget their origins and identities, and the ruling class does not want them for their promises or spending public funds but to ensure the survival of the regime's hard core. Future Candidates It seems that over time, the number of officials whose identities are shaped in coercive powers is increasing, making it more difficult for those who want to encourage citizens to vote between bad and worse. The government no longer considers anyone other than the IRGC forces, Basij, and security clerics close to the Supreme Leader as trustworthy and privy to secrets. If this trend continues, it is likely that in the next decade, if the regime persists, Iranian citizens will have to choose between Dr. Hossein Allah Karam (Dr. Qalibaf of the second generation), Judge Saeed Mortazavi or Judge Salavati (Judge Raisi of the second generation), and Dr. Hassan Abbasi (Dr. Rouhani of the second generation) for the presidency.