ABSTRACT
Now that the war has been halted, we are in the reconstruction phase. In this phase we should think that the revolution has just started.
(Hojjatoleslam Rafsanjani, December 1988)
The previous chapter demonstrated how the regime that succeeded the revolution was, under the arbitration of Khomeini, a composite of political forces struggling to attain the ‘high ground’ of control-and legitimacy of that control-in the new state form. The supremacy of Khomeini as unquestionably the Supreme Leader did not allow a smooth development of independent political institutions and loci of power, since such development was ultimately and constantly subject to his own arbitrary and personal intervention. The persistence of divisions within the elite was partly caused by Ayatollah Khomeini’s style of leadership and the mode of his intervention in inter-elite conflict resolution (Bakhash 1989). Secondly, as Cottam has put it, ‘Khomeini has not permitted any individual or faction to gain preeminence within his government’ (Cottam 1989:172). Thus it was only with his death (including the period preceding that event when preparations had to be made for the survival of the regime after his departure) that the development of independent political institutions could really effectively take place.
