Misreading Iran's Unrest

The troubles that have followed the Iranian presidential elections have been generally misread by the Western media and policymakers. What we are witnessing is not a frustrated East European-style "color revolution"; nor is presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi's movement an uprising of liberal, Westernized sympathizers against the principles of the Iranian Revolution -- although there are surely some who are hostile to the revolution among his supporters.

Rather, what we have been seeing is a power struggle -- between factions of the "Old Guard" clergy who all initially assumed power in 1979 -- that erupted into public view in the recent presidential election campaign. As that dispute is settled over the coming months, we can expect big changes in the top ranks of the power elite. But the revolution is not about to implode.

The essential dispute centers around prominent clerics -- mainly former presidents Mohammad Khatami and Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani -- who have sought to weaken President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's ability to pursue his populist attack on their privileged position. These clerics also have sought to diminish the political weight of the Revolutionary Guard, which they see as increasingly at odds with their interests.

This faction of the elite is deeply threatened by Ahmadinejad's assault on their personal wealth, and by his claims that it was these senior clerics' pursuit of their own narrow self-interest, at the expense of ordinary people, that is the root cause of Iran's economic woes.

It was this group of powerful clerics that stood behind the Mousavi challenge to Ahmadinejad. It was Khatami who was designated by this faction to propose to Mousavi that he stand for election; it was Khatami who initially offered the opposition leader the umbrella of their powerful political standing at the center of Iran's elite.

Thanks in no small part to this blessing, Mousavi and his wife, Zahra Rahnavard, could credibly campaign on the platform of their revolutionary credentials: They were "children of the revolution"; they both participated in it, were shaped by it; and they remained disciples of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Their quarrel, they made clear, was with Ahmadinejad and his conduct of government.

Mousavi's casting of his mission as one of restoring the revolution to its original ideals was not only an internal message; it was also replayed widely in the Arab media. But the West seemed to be hearing and hoping for something else: that he was challenging the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and would seek to flout the institutions of the revolution. In other words, that he was seeking to ignite a "color revolution" -- such as Ukraine's Orange Revolution -- to change the system.