Parviz Davoodi, current head vice president of Iran, graduated
in 1981 with a Ph.D in economics from Iowa State.

Davoodi, who left soon after his graduation, is known as a
liberal economist, said Dennis Starleaf, who was a professor in the
economics department while Davoodi was attending Iowa
State.Starleaf was also on the evaluation board for Davoodi’s
dissertation.

On Sept. 11, 2005, Davoodi was appointed vice president of Iran
by a newly elected Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

“I haven’t seen or heard from him since he left here. I knew him
quite well,” Starleaf said. “It didn’t surprise me, you know, you
don’t hear from most of the students after they leave.”

Starleaf said that at the time of Davoodi’s attendance at Iowa
State, there were a large number of Iranian students studying in
the United States.

“Before the shah was deposed, he set up some sort of a funding
program for Iranian students to come to the U.S. In addition to
that, there were a number of well-to-do Iranian families that sent
their students to the United States,” Starleaf said.

Their relationship was more of a teacher-student interaction
than a close personal one, he said.

“He used to come in and see me,” Starleaf said. “He’d ask me
questions about economics and stuff like that… When he came to me
the most he was studying for his qualifying exams”

In comparison to other Iranian students, Davoodi seemed more
religiously devout, Starleaf said.

“I remember him coming in during the period of fasting, Ramadan.
He would complain that he felt terrible because he hadn’t eaten all
day,” Starleaf said. “Many of the other Iranian students didn’t
follow it as closely. I thought he was more devout, that he took it
more seriously than many of the other students did.”

Anca Turcu, lecturer in political science, said each vice
president and cabinet member has to be a devout Shi’i muslim.

“The mullahs and the ayatollah have to approve of the people
selected for the vice presidency and cabinet before any official
appointment is made,” she wrote in an e-mail.

While vice presidents are appointed and must be approved, they
do not have as much power as the president or any of the religious
leaders do.

According to article 124 of the Iranian constitution, the
president of the country appoints vice presidents or deputies to
fulfill a variety of roles involving presidential affairs. The
first vice president is responsible for “administering the affairs
of the Council of Ministers and coordination of functions of other
deputies.”

“Vice presidents and cabinet members usually have minor roles in
the executive,” Turcu wrote. “They tow the line imposed by the
religious leaders.”

Turcu wrote that many of these appointees are conservative and
tend to fall in line with the rule of Ahmadinejad and the religious
leaders.

Davoodi, whose dissertation was on a federal reserve accounting
system called the “reserve ratio,” faces numerous economic problems
in Iran.

“[The country] is still in great part suffering from the
so-called “Dutch disease”— a dependency on oil exports,” Turcu
wrote. “At the same time, unemployment is sky high, with reports of
20 percent of the population being unemployed in some areas of the
country. Inflation is also rampant. The government does not own
much of the economy, but is in control of most private enterprises.
Although Iran has been trying to attract foreign investors, it has
not been very successful.”

On top of the financial issues Iran faces, the recent
presidential elections have thrown the country into turmoil as
Ahmadenijad and his popular reformist rival Mir Hossein Mousavi
have both declared themselves winners. Supporters from both sides
have been rioting in the capital city of Tehran since the Friday
elections.

Turcu wrote that the real power in the country lies with the
religious leadership or ayatollah.

“The ayatollah is also known as the ‘supreme leader’ in Iran,”
she said. “He is named for life by the other clerics and has veto
power over everything elected officials do. The president is more
visible in day-to-day politics, but he has to closely follow the
rules and demands of the ayatollah.”

Because of this partial-theocracy, the president cannot make any
decisions without the ayatollah’s permission.

Turcu wrote that Iran’s theocracy was attempting to mimic a
democracy.

“In purely theocratic regime, clerics would run the country, and
no elections would be held,” she said.

In Iran, elections are regularly held, and voters have a choice
between different candidates.

However, everyone on the ballot is approved by a “non-elected
body,” Turcu wrote.

“[It] is made up of mullahs (clerics), called the Council of the
Guardians,” she wrote. “At the same time, the constitution of the
country states that all elected officials have to obey the
ayatollah, or supreme religious leader, in all matters concerning
decision-making, internal or foreign policies.”

Recent events have led to a change in the way the people
perceive the ayatollah’s power, Turcu wrote.

“It is quite clear that the citizens of Iran are not willing to
blindly follow and obey him anymore,” she wrote. “The fact that the
protestors keep pouring into the streets is a clear challenge to
the authority of the supreme leader. At the end of the day, no
matter who becomes president, if the ayatollah is still in power,
Iranians will not witness the changes they are hoping for.”