POST-ELECTION IRAN: "THE SYSTEM IS NO LONGER

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 03 ISTANBUL 000244 C O R R E C T E D C O P Y (ADDING NOFORN CAVEATS) NOFORN SIPDIS LONDON FOR MURRAY; BERLIN FOR PAETZOLD; BAKU FOR MCCRENSKY; BAGHDAD FOR BUZBEE; ASHGABAT FOR TANGBORN; DUBAI FOR IRPO E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/02/2029 TAGS: PGOV PINS KDEM PREL IR TU SUBJECT: POST-ELECTION IRAN: "THE SYSTEM IS NO LONGER WORTH SACRIFICING FOR" REF: ISTANBUL 207 ISTANBUL 00000244 001.2 OF 003 Classified By: ConGen Istanbul Acting Political-Economic Section Chief Geoff Odlum; Reason 1.5 (d). ¶1. (S/NF) Summary: Former Iranian MFA Director General Kia Tabatabaee, recently returned from Iran, described how he thinks Ahmadinejad's campaign "stole" the elections, including printing 20 million extra ballots for ballot-box stuffing. He predicted the regime will now work hard to secure international recognition and talks with the USG, acknowledging that at some point soon it will be in USG interests to engage. He shared a rumor that Rafsanjani tried and failed to oust Khamenei and now is on the defensive, and suggested that a number of "cracks in the regime" will soon appear, including increasingly public debates about whether the system of Velayat-e Faqih has run its course, and the possibility that the opposition movement may yet try to launch a national economic strike. Comment: Tabatabaee, a former revolutionary, sees the past four years as a disaster for Iran. Until three weeks ago he blamed Ahmadinejad. Now he blames Khamenei even more, for wreaking so much systemic havoc simply to re-install an incompetent president who won't threaten his legacy. Tabatabaee, and perhaps many of his contemporaries, now see "the system" as nothing more than an extension of Khamenei's personal ambition, which makes it a system no longer worth sacrificing for. Tabatabaee believes the Iranians who marched last month for Mousavi will be the same Iranians who "will soon reshape how Iran is governed." End Summary and Comment. The lessons of 2005 -------------- ¶2. (S/NF) Former Iranian Foreign Ministry Director General Kia Tabatabaee (reftel, please protect) told us June 30 that he had spent the week before and after Iran's June 12 elections in Tehran. He had voted for Mousavi, as had all of his family and friends. He said after voting that morning, he drove to several neighborhoods in south and east Tehran -- "Ahmadinejad neighborhoods" -- and spoke to people waiting in polling booth lines. Even in conservative neighborhoods a majority of Iranians he spoke to said they were voting for opposition candidates. Tabatabaee said he had expected a significant attempt at ballot stuffing and voter intimidation by Ahmadinejad's campaign, but he was shocked by the extent of the "crude, obvious, and overwhelming" fraud that he asserts was perpetrated by the regime to ensure Ahmadinejad's re-election. He claimed that all members of Iran's informed political class now conclude that the election result was decided by the Supreme Leader before election day. "Shame on us for thinking this could be a fair vote." Tabatabaee said the Ahmadinejad campaign followed "the same playbook" that it had followed in the first round of 2005 elections: allowing the vote count to proceed legitimately for the first few hours of the vote to see whether and how much fraud would be needed, and once it became clear that Mousavi would win by a wide margin, moving quickly to replace the real vote-count with a pre-prepared fraudulent count. "In 2005, late in the day they gave themselves the million extra votes they needed to get to the second round. This time they awarded themselves nineteen million extra, to ensure no second round, and no possible challenge -- they thought -- to the result. It was the same method they used in 2005, times ten." ¶3. (S/NF) Tabatabaee shared the rumor he had heard from pro-Mousavi and pro-Rafsanjani friends including within the GOI that Interior Minister Mahsouli had ordered the printing of 20 million extra ballots, and tasked Basiji units with filling them out for Ahmadinejad, as a "physical reserve" of ballots to be used in vote-stuffing, but in the end, most of those fake ballots were not even used, and the final official vote tally was "made up out of thin air." Tabatabaee assesses that when lower-level Interior Ministry officials called Mousavi the afternoon of June 12 to inform him that he was headed towards a first round victory, they had done so without higher-level permission, and once Mousavi's camp then leaked the news of those calls it forced Khamenei to announce the first round Ahmadinejad victory that same evening, before the regime had time to physically stuff enough boxes with enough fraudulent ballots. Over the next ten days, however, the regime gave itself time to stuff those ballots into as many ballot boxes as possible, and to get more ballots into the hands of the team responsible for the partial recount. "Did you watch the video of the recount of the supposedly random 10% of ballot boxes? Did you notice how many ballots were not folded up properly, but instead were still unfolded and pristine? None of those ballots had been put in a ballot ISTANBUL 00000244 002.2 OF 003 box on June 12." Even the hardliners need engagement -------------- ¶4. (S/NF) According to Tabatabaee, now that the regime feels it has closed the books on any future legal challenge to the outcome, it will press hard to secure international recognition of Ahmadinejad's victory. The regime would probably take steps in the near future to try to revive prospects for engagement with the U.S. "Even a more hard-line government needs legitimacy and recognition." Tabatabaee recognized that in light of many pressing issues confronting the region, once Ahmadinejad is inaugurated at the end of July and "contrary to the will of many millions of voters, the US Government will need to work with the Iranian government." Such engagement will likely be distasteful to the US, he suggested, because he expects the regime to maintain the current level of domestic suppression throughout the summer: Using force to prevent large demonstrations, keeping leaders and vocal activists from "the movement" in prison, limiting domestic access to the internet and global media, and keeping Mousavi and Rafsanjani "on a very tight leash." Tabatabaee said the conventional wisdom in Tehran, even among Rafsanjani supporters, is that Rafsanjani tried and failed to secure enough clerical support to oust Khamenei, and now is in a "defensive crouch" simply trying to save himself and his family from house arrest, prison, or worse. But more cracks will appear -------------- ¶5. (S/NF) Looking at the longer-term, Tabatabaee said he had reasons for optimism that real political change will still come to Iran. "So many taboos have been broken this year. Things have changed forever." Tabatabaee said that a "new and very capable generation has tasted real freedom" for the first time. "That door has been opened, and the regime won't be able to shut it." Neither the popular demand for greater political freedom nor the profound animosity of many important Iranian officials towards Ahmadinejad will disappear, Tabatabaee explained. Moreover, now that Khamenei has so dramatically changed the nature of the role of Iran's Supreme Leader, destroying overnight the traditional legacy of that position as a neutral, final arbiter, "there so many questions and contradictions in the system that had been frozen, which now will become unfrozen, and will soon emerge publicly like cracks in a glacier." ¶6. (S/NF) Chief among those questions, our contact claimed, will be an increasingly open debate among senior clerics about the very nature of Velayat-e Faqih, the rule of a religious Supreme Leader. Tabatabaee claimed a "quiet but growing minority" of Grand Ayatollahs and Ayatollahs, and a significant majority of clerics below the Ayatollah level, are opposed to the notion of clerical rule. Now that Khamenei has tarnished the integrity of the Supreme Leader position, "they may see a near-term opportunity to make this debate public, especially with Khamenei starting to turn his attention to positioning his son as his hand-picked successor," a move that many high-ranking clerics also would oppose. ¶7. (S/NF) Tabatabaee suggested that "we have not seen the last of the demonstrations." He assessed that demonstrations would not follow a "mourning cycle" cycle similar to 1979's (when every three, seven, and 40 days following the martyrdom of protesters a growing segment of population would predictably take to the streets until the Shah's regime could no longer suppress them). Instead, Tabatabaee suggested that the current "movement" would be driven more by the global news-cycle and organized by instant communications, taking to the streets on short notice at moments of opportunity. Moreover, Tabatabaee felt that the "movement" had not yet tried in a serious way to organize economic sector strikes, and that "some leading figures" of the opposition now realize that economic strikes will have a far greater political impact on the regime than large street protests. "I think they will try to organize at least one serious national strike this summer, when the timing is right", for example, on the day of Ahmadinejad's inauguration. ¶8. (S/NF) Tabatabaee further speculated that key players close to Khamenei but bitterly opposed to Ahmadinejad, such as Ali Akbar Nateq-Nouri, Ali Akbar Velayati, and Ali Larijani, would use their authority in careful, incremental ways in coming months to constrain Ahmadinejad. For example, ISTANBUL 00000244 003.2 OF 003 Tabatabaee expects Larijani to use the Majles to keep Ahmadinejad under constant pressure via legislation and investigations. He expects Velayati to persuade Khamenei that he (Velayati) will manage future engagement with the U.S., keeping the issue far away from Ahmadinejad. Finally, he expects Nateq-Nouri to use his position as head of the Supreme Leader's office, responsible for investigative oversight, to launch corruption investigations against Ahmadinejad supporters, or even against Ahmadinejad himself. "They are loyal to the system and still to Khamenei, so they will all try to judge how much pressure they can put on Ahmadinejad without running afoul of the Leader. They will be patient to preserve the system, but over time they will try to bring him (Ahmadinejad) down." The personal evolution of a former revolutionary -------------- ¶9. (S/NF) Comment: As someone who supported the 1979 revolution and spent his career working for "the system", Tabatabaee clearly is sympathetic to the difficult position facing opposition figures like Mousavi, Khatami, and Rafsanjani. He firmly believes that Iran's government over the past four years has been a disaster, for which until three weeks ago he blamed Ahmadinejad exclusively. Now he blames Khamenei even more, for being willing to wreak so much systemic havoc simply to ensure four more years for the candidate who, though incompetent, poses the least ideological threat to Khamenei's legacy. Tabatabaee, perhaps reflecting a similar mental evolution among his pragmatic and reformist contemporaries back in Iran, now sees "the system" as nothing more than an extension of Khamenei's personal vanity and ambition. To former revolutionaries like Tabatabaee, it is thus a system no longer worth sacrificing for; on the contrary it is a system desperately in need of dramatic repair and opening up. As Tabatabaee told us in wrapping up our meeting, "It isn't apparent yet, but the Iranian people have won. It will still take time, but this generation of Iranians who marched for Mousavi will be the same generation of Iranians who soon will reshape how Iran is governed." End Comment. WIENER