BACKGROUND: Prior to the elections, close to 2,500 reform candidates, including many of currently serving in the Majlis that garnered the greatest number of votes four years ago, were disqualified. In all, over 80 currently serving MPs were barred from participating. First Deputy Speaker Mohammad Reza Khatami—the president’s brother and leader of the Participation Front—as well as Behzad Nabavi, Mohsen Mirdamadi, and Mohsen Armin, among many others, were disqualified by the hard-line Guardian Council. These moderate MPs served on some of the most important Majlis committees, including Foreign Affairs, National Security, and Judicial Affairs, and their disqualification marks a significant setback for the moderate elements in Iranian politics. Likewise, the heavy-handed pre-election policies of the Council of Guardians worked against many of the hard-line candidates such tactics were intended to help. Many conservative candidates expressed displeasure at the measures taken to assure their victory as these implied that they could not win on the strengths of their platforms. Many hard-line candidates felt this election would be a repeat performance of the 2002 regional elections when the conservatives easily beat their rivals. Thus, for many, there is the fear that the Guardian Council’s obvious favoritism diminished their standing in the eyes of the Iranian electorate. With the defeat of the moderates aligned with President Mohammad Khatami, the stage is now set for a showdown within Iran’s conservative movement. The pragmatic realists and technocrats identified with former president and current chairman of the Expediency Council Hashemi Rafsanjani and the absolutist hard-line fundamentalist ideologues will face each other in a bid to set the course of Iranian policy and dictate the future of the regime. Rafsanjani’s educated professionals have obvious advantages: under his guidance, the Expediency Council has evolved from just its legislative oversight mandate into a sophisticated strategic policy and planning apparatus. Many issues are at stake as Tehran works through its domestic politics. Iran’s nuclear program and relations with the United States will both increase in importance. Similarly, Tehran’s policies in Afghanistan and Central Asia, as well as Iraq, will also continue to consume increasing amounts of the leadership’s time and energy.

IMPLICATIONS: Some regional diplomats have expressed fear that a presumptive return to power of Rafsanjani’s coterie could mean a revival of Iranian attempts to garner influence in the region. Increased Iranian activism—perhaps by its intelligence and security services—in western Afghanistan and Central Asia, while the fear of many observers, nevertheless seems unlikely. Iran is at present far more concerned with securing its own borders, stabilizing its neighbors, and avoiding preemptive American military action than it is in exporting its revolution or seeking to spread Khomeinism. Tehran’s attempts in the past to use its interpretation of Islam as a bridge in the region have failed, and now the government is considerably more concerned with reviving its own moribund economy and determining the future of the Islamic Republic. This does not mean, however, that Iran will not play a more active role in the region. On the contrary, Tehran is seeking to build constructive links with western Afghanistan. In Ismail Khan, Iran has a regional leader with whom they can cooperate. Indeed, elements of the Iranian government would like to see a greater role for Tehran in Afghanistan, especially in securing reconstruction contracts and supplying much-needed infrastructure materials. For their part, some Afghans have expressed dissatisfaction with the American objective of isolating Iran as Iranians have much to offer their neighbor. Under the new Majlis, Iran will continue to participate as much as it can in the development of western Afghanistan. It will also seek to improve border controls, regulate customs and tax regimes, and aim to control the spread of Afghan narcotics from spilling into Iran. The construction of new border posts and greater cooperation with European police and customs officials will help in these efforts. Iran will also seek to protect the Shi’a communities in Iraq and Afghanistan—especially after the recent Ashura massacres—and express an interest in fighting the fundamentalist Sunni Islam that inspires such vehement anti-Shi’a violence. It is painfully apparent to the regime in Tehran that the United States has fully engaged—politically, economically, and militarily—in the region, and militarily surrounds Iran. With American forces deployed in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Central Asia, and the Gulf, the Iranian military is acutely aware of that it could become the next American ‘project’ in the region. President Bush’s 2002 State of the Union declaration of Iran’s membership in the “Axis of Evil” still painfully echoes in Tehran today.

CONCLUSIONS: The results of the Iranian elections, while written off by many, will likely see the moderate realists grapple for power with the hard-line hezbollahi ideologues bent on maintaining their strict interpretation of the Islamic Revolution. It remains to be seen whether the pragmatists will face the same obstructions and impediments by the hard-liners as was the case during Rafsanjani’s presidency when many of his government’s policies fell victim to political infighting. It is likely, however, that Tehran will continue its unofficial policy of what one astute Iran watcher termed “de-containment”—measures by which Iran can foil Washington’s attempts at political isolation. Thus far, Iran is not at present on America’s hit list for regime change, and the pragmatists know that they can manage the way in which relations with Washington are developed. As long as the hard-line ideologues can be sidelined, and Iran is not seen to be a force of destabilization in the region, the future may yet hold further US-Iranian cooperation.

AUTHOR’S BIO: Christopher Boucek is the editor of the Homeland Security & Resilience Monitor at the Royal United Services Institute in London, and has just returned from his most recent trip to Iran.