Frank Gallagher's List: neocons

• Some clerics and some newspapers feared Mesbah-Yazdi was trying to expand his already growing power by "packing" the Assembly of Experts with "loyalists." In October 2006, an acolyte of Mesbah-Yazdi, Mojtaba Samareh Hashemi, was appointed head of the election commission, supervisor of the poll for the Assembly of Experts,^[8] and many of the candidates in the 2006 Assembly of Experts elections were Mesbah-Yazdi loyalists (though they ran as independent candidates to avoid revealing their affiliation to Mesbah Yazdi).^[7]

• The ascendancy of the Isargaran and Abadgaran, Iran’s main right-wing movements, can be traced back to the municipal elections of 2003 when Abadgaran members won the majority of seats in Tehran and promptly elected Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as Major in April of the same year.
• heir electoral success was repeated in 2004, when the Abadgaran and Isargaran won the largest number of parliamentary votes, including most of the seats in Tehran.
• Ultimately, Iran’s right-wing has inherited the chauvinism of Persian nationalism heralded by the Pahlavi monarchs, and the populism of the early revolutionary years. As such they are representative of Iran’s political culture both before and after the Islamic revolution in 1979.

  • Interesting point about patrimonialism, but is it really coherent to combine patriomonialism with a cult of the sans cullotes and chiliastic rhetoric concerning the Mahdi?
    
    Perhaps for comparisons Spain vs. Italy in the 1930s?
• neoconservatives received a major blow in recent elections for the municipal councils and the 86-member Assembly of Experts.
• Former President Hashemi-Rafsanjani, a pragmatist who lost against Ahmadinejad in the second round of the presidential elections in June 2005, won a landslide victory in the elections for the Assembly of Experts and reformists were able to secure most seats in the city council of Tehran and in Shiraz, Isfahan, Ahvaz, Khorramabad and elsewhere.

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• In March, a prominent neo-conservative and former Revolutionary Guards commander, Ezatollah Zarghami, was named to head Iran’s state television and radio network. Meanwhile, the head of the country’s judiciary, Ayatollah Mahmud Shahroudi, named a former Revolutionary Guards commander to be his legislative liaison.
• The Supreme Leader’s office, along with other top Iranian institutions, has praised neo-conservative initiatives. On July 11, for example, Ayatollah Ali Meshkini, the head of the Assembly of Experts, lauded Ahmadi-Nejad, the Tehran mayor, saying; "not only the people of Tehran, but the entire Iranian nation is pleased that a new management team has come to power at the Mayor’s Office."

• In another sign that the neo-conservatives are in the ascendancy, institutions closely identified with the Old Guard - such as the Society of Combatant Clergy and the Islamic Coalition Association (ICA) - have recently seen their authority scaled back. Throughout the Islamic republic’s history, the ICA managed billions of dollars in various economic projects with little or no accountability for expenditures. Rumors are now circulating in Tehran that some ICA-affiliated organizations may soon be the targets of an anti-corruption investigation.

  Some observers consider Ali-Akbar Nateghnouri, who officially serves as Khamenei’s chief of staff, as the chief liaison between the Old Guard leadership and members of the neo-conservative movement.

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