Rafsanjani Calls for . . . Globalization?
A rather curious piece appeared on the website of the Islamic Republic News Agency yesterday (9 August 2006). The story concerns an address by the chairman of the Iranian Expediency Discernment Council, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. Rafsanjani was the Parliamentary head from the founding of the Iranian theocracy until 1989, and then served as president of Iran from 1989 to 1997. The Expediency Council is the body that manages disputes that arise between the elected Majlis (parliament) and the theocratic Council of Guardians. Rafsanjani, often seen as one of the more pragmatic of the Iranian clerics, also serves as chief advisor to the “Supreme Leader,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. According to the report (bolding is mine):
Expediency Council (EC) Chairman Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani in a message addressing the inaugural ceremony of the `Information and Technology Service Bank' said that today, it is impossible to be an island separated and isolated from the rest of the world.
In his message, which was read at the ceremony on Wednesday, the EC chairman said, "In a world called International Village' on account of the broad-based information dissemination tools currently available, it is not possible to be isolated.
"We should go along with the world through gradual change from the current national and regional position to globalization, since otherwise the current gap between the Third World and the advance world can never be narrowed."
This is all rather . . . un-Islamic and hardly seems newsworthy enough, given the other international stories surrounding it, to warrant a posting on the IRNA website. Note Rafsanjani’s embrace of globalization, as well as the view that industrial, commercial, and technological development (and not the end of western imperialism and Zionism) offers the means to close “the current gap between the Third World and the advance[d] world.”
There was a joke about Rafsanjani that made the rounds in the 1980s. An Iranian government chauffeur is driving three ayatollahs around Tehran. The three clerics in the back seat are arranged with the most radical cleric sitting on the left, and the most moderate cleric on the right. Rafsanjani is sitting in the middle. The chauffeur is lost as he approaches a “T” intersection—he cannot continue on but must turn either right or left. He confesses that he is lost and asks for directions. The radical cleric demands that he turn left. The moderate cleric demands that he turn right. In a panic, the chauffeur looks into the rear-view-mirror and his eyes meet those of Rafsanjani, who instructs the driver: “Signal left; turn right.”
I would not make too much of a single address by Rafsanjani. Nevertheless, I cannot imagine President Ahmadinejad giving the same speech without ranting about Jews, “The Zionist entity,” and “The Great Satan.” And there remains the question of why the article about the address was considered newsworthy enough to post, given the current crises. How great (or little) influence Rafsanjani actually holds over the Supreme Leader may be dependent on the extent of President Ahmadinejad’s policy successes, or failures, in Lebanon and over Iran’s nuclear program. If Iran finds itself isolated internationally, Ahmadinejad’s future may be at stake. If, however, his gambits succeed—the international community folds—his position will become unassailable.
