Martin Longman runs through a connection I had not known about. A critical moment in the history of Iran was the death of Ayatollah Khomeini, as it is often difficult to retain a revolutionary ideology after the charismatic leader of that revolution dies. It's what Max Weber referred to as the "routinization of charisma" and it's hard to pull off.
The logical successor to Khomeini was Ayatollah Hossein Montazeri. He was the most senior and respected cleric in Iran, and Khomeini's ideology required that the most senior cleric by in charge of the rule by religious authority. There was an friend of Montazeri named Mehdi Hashemi who was a complete asshole and got sideways of Khomeini, and that blew up in Montazeri's face.
I knew that this had happened, but I didn't know about Hashemi's role in this.
The reason this is important is that Montazeri was not completely wedded to the idea of the velayat-e faqih or rule by religious authority. He certainly wasn't a fan of trying to export the Iranian Revolution.
Ali Khamenei was.
In the span before his death, Khomeini worked with Ali Rafsanjanah - a nakedly cynical man - to elevate Khamenei over Montazeri. Khamenei was a revolutionary ideologue and Iran continued down the path that now has it as a pariah state at war with all of its neighbors.
I believe that history is largely about big forces, but individuals matter. What would have happened, for instance, if James Comey doesn't announce his investigation in Hillary Clinton's emails and/or the Stormy Daniels story gets out in October of 2016. What happens if Clinton wins is pretty obvious. Donald Trump never sniffs public office and America and the world is in a better place.
No comments:
Post a Comment