ORSAM IRAN MEETINGS – 1

2 minute reading time

On December 10th 2010, a roundtable meeting on Iran was carried out in ORSAM. Dr. Serkan Taflıoğlu and Bayram Sinkaya from METU Department of International Relations took part in the meeting, which was the first of series of meetings. The moderator of the meeting was ORSAM Senior Advisor Retired Major General Armağan Kuloğlu, and the meeting was conducted with the participation of ORSAM Advisor Assist. Prof. Dr. Mehmet Şahin and ORSAM Middle East Research Assistant Sercan Doğan.                                 

During the meeting, “Iran's Internal Dynamics” were discussed. The importance of knowing the internal dynamics in Iran comes to forefront in order to take a basic step to understand Iran in depth, which is one of the most important regional powers in the Middle East. Therefore, the subjects such as; “Political Shi'ism” as an ideology the Iranian regime is based on, the elements of this ideology, the structures of government organizations in Iran and the relations of the organizations with each others were highlighted during the meeting.    

Dr. Serkan Taflıoğlu gave some basic information on Shi'ism, and he also made an analysis of “Wilayatul Faqih”, which is an important understanding the current Iranian regime is based on. Dr. Taflıoğlu explained that the key position in Iranian regime, which takes its legitimacy from “Wilayatul Faqih” doctrine, is the “Guidance” position, in which today Ayatollah Ali Khamanei is found, by giving examples from the practices in the country and from inter-institutional relations.  

Bayram Sinkaya also added nationalist/republican anti-Western struggle in the beginning of 20th century in Iran, in addition to Iranian regime's official ideology Shi'ism; and he mentioned that the ideology was fed by quite different resources. Touching on the fact that Ali Shariati's studying revolutionist Islam before Khomeini is one of these resources, Sinkaya put forward the elements of the official ideology of Iran in detail.