Berkley Center

Some observers have noticed the increasing tendency of Iranian leaders to use religious symbols in the most recent period, a time of unilateral American withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPA) and the retention, even augmentation, of sanctions against Iran that the JCPA would have lifted. How might we explain this discursive retrenchment?

It might be understood by reference to Max Weber’s concept of Caesaropapism as historically applied to the Iranian state. The Weberian concept points to the amalgamation of secular and religious aspects of leadership ultimately leading to the supremacy of secular authority. The sociologist Said Arjomand has argued that the model may be applied to Safavid Iran (1501–1722) and its inversion under the succeeding Qajar Dynasty (1785–1925), where the religious institution clearly gained the upper hand.

The Qajar period was dominated by competition between Britain and Russia for pre-eminence in Iranian affairs. The clergy, whose influence was paramount in this period, were too weak to avert large-scale European interventions in Iran and were forced to rely on what we might today call “soft” power to ward off these depredations. At the heart of their repertoire of resistance lay the Shi’ite dramaturgical narrative. Emblematic of this narrative are the themes of martyrdom and victimhood, combined with reiterated reminders that Iranians must honor and redeem the sacrifices made on their behalf by the Imams (who lived collectively from 601 to 873) to save their exalted community from extinction.

Faced with an unprecedented penetration of their society by foreign powers, and lacking the necessary material resources to fight against it, the government could at least invoke “cultural” weapons against such injustices as the 1828 Treaty of Turkmenchay and the Reuter Concession of 1872. The treaty granted Russia veto power over the appointment of the crown prince, not to mention various cessions of territory, hefty financial indemnities, the compulsion to accept Russian-imposed commercial agreements, among other capitulations. The concession gave Britain unprecedented control over Iranian railroads, roads, banks, factories, and mineral resources, leading Lord Curzon to describe it as “the most complete and extraordinary surrender of the entire industrial resources of a kingdom into foreign hands that has probably ever been dreamed of, much less accomplished in history” [1]. In reaction, the clergy condemned the alienation of Iran’s patrimony, and, eventually, many of their ranks joined the social movements that participated in the anti-monarchical Constitutional Revolution (1905–1911).

The Pahlavi Dynasty (1925/1926–1979) saw a shelving of any pretense of an alliance between the state and the religious institution. But this tendency itself was undercut by the revolutionary Khomeinist and post-Khomeinist regimes after 1979, enshrining religious supremacy once again.
Looking at things from Tehran’s perspective, since the clergy came to power in 1979 the country has faced U.S. hostility and an invasion by the Iraqi army, with American non-combat support, in a war that lasted eight years and devastated the population and resources of Iran. Iranian leaders have also viewed factors such as the presence of American combat forces in Iraq following Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in 1991, the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and American military activities in Qatar and Bahrain following the Second Gulf War as responsible for the gradual increase in their country’s isolation in regional affairs.

The “theocratic” leaders of Iran—having lost their charismatic hero, Ayatollah Khomeini, in 1989—in all likelihood developed a self-understanding as a moral community besieged by enemies. Trying to break out of their isolation by nurturing and consolidating ties with Syria and the Lebanese Hezbollah appeared to work. However, following the death of former Syrian president Hafez al-Assad in 2000 and the onset of the Syrian Civil War in 2011, Iranian ties with this important ally were seriously eroded. Meanwhile, non-state actors, such as Al-Qaeda and ISIS, were seen as additional threats.

It is true that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard (pasdaran) had come to be far better organized than in the chaotic early days of the Iranian Revolution and are now grudgingly regarded by external foes as a force to be reckoned with. However, in my personal opinion, the guard itself has gradually strengthened its political position and its power in domestic politics to the point of worrying the religious leaders about the strength of their influence and hence initiatives in decision-making. I do not argue that the guard is a monolithic social force with ambitions of executing a military coup against the civilian leadership in Iran. But it seems to me that there are powerful actors in that organization who do have ambitions to acquire a greater share of power than the clergy finds palatable. Are we on the verge of another inversion back to secular supremacy over the religious institution in a reprise of the Safavid and Pahlavi models of Caesaropapism?

It is in this context that we might understand the greater visibility of religious symbols in the narrative emanating from Iran. It is possible that religious leaders are invoking these themes to remind the population of their duty to remain faithful to the memory of the Imams and the ideology of martyrdom that has been endemic to Iranian political culture for many generations. In moving in this direction, they are fully mindful that the stage of transnational Shi’ism is much larger than that of Iran as a nation-state. By appealing to a more universalist message than that of territorial patriotism, Iranian leaders enhance the prospects of breaking out of their perceived isolation in a particularly dangerous time of another possible war.

1. George N. Curzon, Persia and the Persian Question (London: Longman, 1892), 1: 480.