Daniel Byman and Kenneth M. Pollack152 μ¢¤³£ ¬μμ¬
home, and they dominate Iran’s domestic politics. This camp is mo-
tivated more by its Persian nationalism and revolutionary zeal than
by a cool-headed examination o how to grow Iran’s economy or end
its diplomatic isolation.
Khamenei is the pivot. He weighs the international pressure push-
ing Iran in the direction o the reformists and pragmatists against the
domestic pressure from the hard-liners. With these impersonal forces
more or less in balance, it is Khamenei who gets to choose which way
to tack as each issue comes before him. Sometimes, he sides with the
hard-liners—for instance, doubling down on the support o militias
in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. At other times, he sides with the pragma-
tists, as when he accepted the 2015 nuclear deal brokered by the United
States, an agreement that promised to revive Iran’s economy through
international trade in exchange for limits on its nuclear program.
It was not inevitable that an Iranian leader would act this way. After
the death o Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, in 1989, one leading candi-
date to succeed him was Mohammad Reza Golpaygani. Anyone cho-
sen would have agreed with the general
contours o the revolutionary frame-
work established by Khomeini, but
within those guidelines, much remained
unsettled. Compared with Khamenei,
Golpaygani was a more traditional
conservative, skeptical o what he saw
as the regime’s social tolerance by al-
lowing music on radio and television,
yet far less revolutionary in his foreign policy views. In the end,
revolutionary legitimacy trumped scholarly strength, and the mul-
lahs—with Khomeini’s blessing—selected Khamenei.
How might Golpaygani have ruled? Given his preferences, he
would likely have erred more on the side o social conservativism
and less on the side o aggressive foreign policy. Similarly, he prob-
ably would have favored more limits on the clergy’s role in politics,
taking a more traditional view that religious leaders should stick to
issues o morality. In this scenario, Iran since 1989 would have fo-
cused more on enforcing social mores at home and less on stirring
the pot abroad. Yet it was Khamenei that ascended to Khomeini’s
throne, and so it has been he who has chosen among the competing
strands o Iranian policy.There are still some men
and women who are
charting their nations’
paths—some bene¥cial,
some disastrous.