ABSTRACT
Since the Ayatollah Ruhollah Mussavi’s death, the pragmatic faction within the fundamentalist camp has gained the upper hand in the Byzantine politics of postrevolutionary Iran. The pragmatic leadership of the Islamic Republic has steered Iran toward moderation. This chapter examines the tensions and contradictions of this drive toward moderation in the post-Khomeini era. Khamenei, unaware that he would soon become the new faqih, rejected the notion that the key to Khomeini’s success was his marja status: Khomeini succeeded, Khamenei said, because he was both a qualified marja and a gifted political leader. Rafsanjani, supporting Khamenei, maintained that by the time someone becomes a marja, he is usually old and devoid of enough energy to manage the country, which requires a different kind of temperament and skills than being a marja. Rafsanjani’s election as Iran’s fourth president in July 1989 also helped Khamenei to consolidate power more quickly.
