Middle East Quarterly
An architect by training, Mir-Hossein Mousavi was, from the 1960s, close to the forces that created the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Imprisoned in the period leading to the revolution, he later joined Ayatollah Khomeini’s close associate, Mohammad Beheshti, who founded the Islamic Republican Party. Later in that year he was appointed by Khomeini to the Iranian Council of Islamic Revolution and went on to hold important positions under the new regime, including foreign minister and prime minister (1981-89).
Mir-Hossein Mousavi was the highest placed of three presidential challengers to current Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. After the election, Mousavi claimed that the ballot had been fixed and that Ahmadinejad should step down as president. However, Mousavi still retains a firm belief in the Islamic regime that governs Iran; he is not a secularist. He praises the revolution, upholds the constitution, and defends the security forces, including the Basij paramilitary.
On June 20, 2009, Mousavi issued the fifth in a series of public declarations following the Iranian presidential elections of June 12. Mousavi was the highest placed of three presidential challengers. After the election, he claimed that the ballot had been fixed and that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad should step down as president. Protests moved onto the streets, and Mousavi was quickly identified as the leader of a broad coalition of reformists, the Green Movement. Mousavi’s platform clearly includes several reformist goals from women’s rights to the abolition of the morality police. Iranian opponents have described him as part of a “secular mafia,”[1] and Western news coverage has shown his followers calling for the overthrow of “the Dictator” as if they want to tear down the Islamic regime in its entirety. Many do have that aspiration, but others are believers who simply want a better version of what they already have in the theocratic state.
Mousavi himself is not a secularist, however much he may speak of reform and democracy. As the following document clearly shows, he retains a firm belief in the Islamic regime that governs Iran. There is no hope at all that if Mousavi ever comes to power he will do more than a little regime house-cleaning. The following excerpted version of Mousavi’s June 20, 2009 address[2] makes this clear and serves as a warning that even if he were to be elected president, the West could expect no progress with regard to deep and lasting regime change —The Editors
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