The coming purge in Iran

Sunday Times:

Opponents of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, are bracing themselves for a purge if, as expected, he returns to office following the country’s bitterly disputed presidential election.

His defeated rival, Mir Hos-sein Mousavi, who came a distant second in a poll he insists was rigged by the regime, has continued to defy what he has called “huge pressures” to halt his campaign for a new vote.

Last week his communications with the outside world were severely restricted, his web page was taken down and his newspaper was closed, with 25 of its employees arrested.

Supporters said they feared Mousavi could become another Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese pro-democracy leader who has spent 13 of the past 19 years under house arrest.

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Observers said they believed that after his inauguration, due by early August, a vengeful Ahmadinejad would oust anyone in government who had favoured the opposition or simply failed to support him.

“There will be a purge, no doubt about it,” said Ali Ansari, director of the Iranian Institute of St Andrews University, who until recently often travelled to Iran for research.

“There are people in Tehran who think, now that the regime has won, they will be left alone. I can’t tell you how far from the truth this is.”

The purge may already have begun. Akbar Torkan, the deputy oil minister and a rising star in the government, was sacked after writing sympathetically in an opposition newspaper.

Iranian sources said 17 senior officers in the elite Revolutionary Guard had been “reassigned” because their loyalties were suspect.

It is not a new tactic for Ahmadinejad. Since he became president in 2004 he has replaced every ambassador and all but one of Iran’s provincial governors with cronies, as well as filling important ministries with allies.

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The good news is that any Ahmadinejad replacements will probably lower the overall IQ of the Iranian government. While that might be a problem if there were any hope of a negotiation with the regime, we already know that was improbable to start with. Iran will continue to be at war with the US and it is better that there be fewer smart people around to conduct it.