On 23rd May 1997 something extraordinary happened in Iran. On that day's presidential election, Mohammad Khatami, a cleric of liberal reputation, was chosen by 69 per cent of the voters (on a turnout of more than 80 per cent) to be the country's next president. The event was extraordinary for two reasons: first, because of the broad range of people who voted for Khatami-the younger generation, women, non-Persians (who make up half of Iran's population); second, because once the four candidates were in the race, a free choice was allowed. It is too early to say what the import of this election will be. But Khatami's victory, on what was universally seen as a reform platform, is the consequence of a change of atmosphere in Iran as the country nears the end of its second post-revolutionary decade. Khatami has captured this change.
Most observers had expected Ali Akbar Nateq Nuri, candidate of the conservative right, to win-by fair means or foul. He did not; and on 20th August Khatami was sworn in as president. Contrary to expectations, the new president's nominees for his cabinet were agreed to by the majlis (parliament) without exception. Perhaps more surprisingly, Mohsen Rezaie, head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards-a centre of revolutionary militancy-resigned. The Guards, together with the regular army, will now fall under the control of Admiral Ali Shamkhani, the new minister of defence. After his resignation, Rezaie gave several critical interviews to the right-wing press: he suggested that the president should pay less attention to the building of "civil society" in a western sense and more to fulfilling Khomeini's last testament. But the fact remained that Rezaie had yielded to the pressure of an elected president.
Khatami's election has aroused great hopes in Iran on the part of his voters-and abroad, on the part of states that want to improve relations with Iran. Internally there would appear to be little support for reversing the Islamic revolution of 1979, but a large majority is in favour of far-reaching reform. First priority is the issue of the rule of law. Administrative systems are jumbled and corrupt; the parallel police and security organisations act independently of central control; and until Khatami's accession, women on the streets were liable to harassment not only from regular police and revolutionary guards, but also from a more shadowy force, the ansar-i hizbullah (supporters of the party of God). The tide of repression has ebbed and flowed over the years; broadly speaking, things have improved since the end of the war with Iraq in 1988. But last year the number of executions rose, and there was a campaign against intellectuals and dissident journals. Television launched a weekly programme, Heritage, which picked on a particular writer for abuse and allegations of ties to foreign interests. (There is no accusation more sinister in the Islamic revolutionary vocabulary than that of being vabaste or "linked.")
Next in line for reform is the economy. Great play was made by Khomeini in the revolution's early days of the need to cultivate austerity. "In the time of the Prophet, the faithful ate two dates a day," he once told an adviser who warned of the economic consequences of the US blockade. But this austerity was linked to a dependency theory argument about the need to go from being a masrafi (consumerist) to a toulidi (productivist) society. For all the chaos of the revolution and the strains of the war with Iraq, there has been a substantial redistribution of wealth and an improvement in popular living standards. GDP per capita in purchasing power terms is about $4,500, more than Turkey's; but inflation is over 20 per cent, most Iranians have more than one job, and goods are prohibitively expensive. A worker's average wage is 100,000 rials a month: a chicken costs 14,000 rials, one month's rent for a two-room flat is 200,000 rials.
Finally, change in Iran's foreign relations will come slowest, if at all. In an address to the majlis in August, Khatami called for a "new foreign policy" based on dignity, wisdom and expediency. He has replaced Ali Akbar Velayati, the previous foreign minister, with Seyed Kamal Kharrazi, who favours better relations with the west. But the gap between Iran and the west remains wide: Washington pays a small price in the conflict with Iran, and expects it to blink first. Iran's relations with Europe remain tense, even though EU ambassadors have returned.
Khatami himself has done much to raise expectations. He has called for change at home and abroad, and has cultivated the image of an open-minded cleric. A man not given to grandiose behaviour, he has taken to turning up at public functions unannounced-and to travelling alone on public transport. One interviewer arrived in his office to find him translating de Tocqueville's Democracy in America. Others recall his interest, as a philosophy student, in Kant and Hegel. Above all, he held the line against dogmatic revolutionaries and encouraged writers and artists when he was minister of culture from 1982 to 1993. This is taken by many Iranians as an indication of his future plans. But what he promises is more complex-as is his past.
khatami was born in 1943 in the town of Ardakan in the central Iranian province of Yazd. His father, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khatami, had studied theology in the religious centre, Qom, along with Khomeini. After the revolution he served as one of Khomeini's representatives in Yazd itself. The younger Khatami also studied at Qom from 1961, when the Islamic revolutionary opposition to the Shah was gaining ground. He was associated with two clerics who became prominent in the revolution and the post-revolutionary regime: the Ayatollahs Motahhari and Beheshti, both of whom were later assassinated by radical opponents of Khomeini.
In 1979, Khatami became head of the Islamic Centre in Hamburg-an important focus for Khomeini's influence in Europe-and in 1980 returned to be elected to the majlis as deputy for Ardakan. Khomeini nominated him in 1981 to run the now revolutionised Kayhan newspapers, and in 1982 Khatami became minister of culture and Islamic guidance. These were the years of the war with Iraq, when he was also chairman of the war propaganda headquarters. His period as minister of culture ended in 1993 when he was attacked for his liberal views, but he remained an adviser to then president Rafsanjani.
The Iranian political system conforms to no simple model. Those who step outside a broad Islamic consensus are silenced, arrested, sometimes tortured and shot. Candidates for election must be vetted before they are allowed to stand. But one of the peculiarities of this revolution, so like others in most respects, is that it has no ruling party; indeed, no parties at all. There are wide areas of freedom, above all in the press: this is not a totalitarian state-as the election of Khatami illustrates.
Yet despite the absence of parties, there are identifiable factions in the parliament and government. The "Traditional Right," supported by the spiritual leader Ayatollah Khamene'i and the "Modern Right," backed by Rafsanjani, ruled in tandem during the eight years of Rafsanjani's presidency (1989-97). Khatami has been active in a third group, the "Islamic Left," a broad coalition which includes advocates of liberal reform like himself, as well as supporters of confrontation with the US and of continuing state control of the economy. Khatami has formed a coalition of this Islamic Left and the Modern Right. This has excluded from office both the Traditional Right and the fourth faction, the "New Left." This advocates state control of the economy and a hard line on dissidents-it has at its disposal the vigilante force, ansar-i hizbullah.
It is easy to speculate about what Khatami wants, but equally important to recognise the limits of what he might intend. He may be an Andropov or early Gorbachev: committed to change in order to sustain the system, rather than a proponent of transition. After all, he is a cleric steeped in the world of the mosque. Beheshti and Motahhari, his inspirations, were advocates of a muscular state. He is also linked by marriage to the ruling clerics-his wife's niece married Khomeini's son Ahmad, his brother married Khomeini's granddaughter. Khatami remained close to Ahmad until the latter's death in 1995. Khatami has not survived this long by opposing the core programme of the Islamic Republic: in the presidential election campaign, in which each candidate adopted the symbol of a holy place, Khatami chose Ayatollah Khomeini's mausoleum.
His reformism may focus on what he feels most confident about: the realm of culture. Already controls on publishing and lecturing by critics of the regime have been lightened, and some films have been unbanned. But it is hard to guess what a new Khatami economic programme might look like: more than 80 per cent of Iran's industry remains under state control, as does foreign trade. In any case, his room for political manoeuvre is limited.
at the core of Iran's political system lie two constitutional conflicts. One is between the president, elected at most for two four-year terms, and the faqih, the leader and religious authority, elected for an indefinite term. Khomeini held the latter position until his death in 1989; it has since been held by Ayatollah Khamene'i, a conservative militant. The principle of velayat-i faqih-that the faqih's authority is superior to that of any elected president or parliament-was central to Khomeini's vision of the Islamic regime. Khamene'i is generally held to have favoured Khatami's opponent Nateq Nuri in the elections, and has insisted on maintaining the confrontation with the west and Israel.
The other constitutional conflict is between the president and the parliament: the fifth post-revolutionary majlis was elected in May 1996 and includes many supporters of Khatami's line. It flagged through his new cabinet in August, but some within it are hinting that they await confrontation on more suitable terrain. Another centre of power is the Expediency Council which advises the leader-and to which former president Rafsanjani has now been appointed. Rafsanjani did allow a free election to take place in May; but he has indicated not only that he wishes to continue playing a political role, but also that he intends to oppose the new president when he sees fit. He is believed to have wanted to alter the constitution, to serve a third term as president: by building up the Expediency Council he may achieve his aim by an alternative route.
This description of politics, however, is only half the story. Beyond the constitutional overlaps lies a less overt struggle for influence and power within the Islamic Republic. Semi-autonomous foundations, believed to have assets of $20 billion, are independent actors in the economic and political spheres. Most notable is the bonyad-e mostazafin, the Foundation of the Oppressed. The leader has his own network of appointees-political agents and Friday prayer leaders-at the centre and in the provinces, who function as a surrogate ruling party. And out of the war with Iraq-the event which has shaped the regime almost as much as the revolution itself-came the basij (the mobilisation militia), the extensive influence of the pasdarane enjhelab-e Eslaimi (revolutionary guards), and Vevak, the security organisation. They seem to act with complete autonomy; through the State Security Council, on which the president sits, they take key decisions on covert action abroad. In the mid-1980s the regime cracked down on paramilitary units operating abroad without official sanction, but these organisations seem to have retained their power. They could oppose the initiatives of a conciliatory president.
Yet this must be seen against the backdrop of Khatami's convincing majority last May. Furthermore, other forces are emerging which-while not formally included in the government-are pushing for change. For some years, Gholamhosain Karbaschi, Tehran's mayor, has promoted modernisation and encouraged public concerts of Iranian and western music. Immediately after the president's inauguration, conservative newspapers launched a campaign against Karbaschi, charging him with corruption and denouncing the idea of "civil society" which both he and Khatami defend.
Despite the strictures of the Islamic Republic on women's dress in public, there is a wide range of feminist activity in Iran, reflected in meetings, journals and campaigns. Dress aside, women in Iran do not face the kind of restrictions on employment or public activity found in more traditional settings such as Saudi Arabia-let alone Afghanistan. Within the universities a current known as "Alternative Thinking" has emerged, which seeks a more modern, open interpretation of the Islamic texts. The philosopher Abdul-Karim Surush, its best-known proponent, was banned from lecturing and attending foreign conferences in the last months of Rafsanjani's presidency, but has been allowed to do so since Khatami's accession. Beyond proposing a more liberal interpretation of Islam, Surush and his associates have questioned the continued role of the faqih, the position held by Khamene'i. The faqih debate has become a lightning-rod of political attitudes in Iran. The conservative reaction has been to add to the conventional slogans of denunciation ("Death to America," "Death to Israel" and so on) a new one: "Death to those who oppose the Velayat-i Faqih." Surush argues that Islam can be divided into its "essential" and the "accidental" parts. The interpretation of jurisprudence-the task of the faqih-is a worldly, not a religious science, and thus part of the "accidental." Yet it would be misleading to regard Surush as a dissident. At a seminar at London's School of Oriental and African Studies in 1996 he spelt out the limits of his reinterpretation: no secularism; no freedom of expression for non-believers or heretics; and a rejection of a "western" concept of human rights.
Beyond political and religious factions, however, lies the popular trend which Khatami's election expresses: most Iranians want a relaxation of the controls of the revolutionary years. They want to see their country, with its rich cultural heritage, more open to the outside world and to western culture. So strong is this trend that it has even led some writers, such as the sociologist Asef Bayat, to talk of a coming "post-Islamist society."
There has always been a faction of the clergy opposed to the institutionalisation of clerical power in the faqih and elsewhere. They fear that such an identification of Islam with the state will sooner or later backfire. But between the rigidities of Khomeini and now Khamene'i on the one hand, and a post-Islamic society on the other, there are intermediary positions of the kind which Khatami and Surush are trying to articulate.
in the international arena, Iran faces even greater challenges. The war with Iraq ended in a stalemate in 1988. Saddam failed to overthrow Iran's regime, but inflicted terrible casualties: up to 1m dead. He also secured the entry of the US navy into the Gulf on his side: in the closing stages of the war, up to a third of the Iranian navy was sunk by US forces protecting oil tankers. Events since then have offered little comfort to Tehran: in 1990-91 the US intervention against Saddam over Kuwait knocked out Iraq as a significant threat to Iran, but had the drawback of consolidating the US presence in the Gulf. Saddam himself has remained in power, and has periodically offered to do a deal with Iran. If successful, this would destroy US policy in the region. But memories of the war, and hopes that one day Saddam will be replaced by a more Islamic regime, keep Tehran from succumbing to his advances.
The collapse of Soviet power was welcomed by Iran, but it has brought more problems than it has solved. In the Transcaucasus, Azerbaijan and Armenia are in dispute, with Iran favouring Armenia. In the Caspian region, there is no agreement on the delimitation of territorial waters or on sharing oil and gas exploration; Washington is working to keep Tehran out. In Afghanistan, the collapse of the Najibullah regime has brought the rise of the militantly conservative Taliban-a force which Iran regards as an anathema-and Saudi-backed to boot. In central Asia, Iran has held a neutral position between Islamist guerrillas and the ex-communist rulers in the civil war in Persian-speaking Tajikistan; it has established reasonable relations with other post-Soviet regimes, but has again come up against US opposition to the establishment of commercial and political ties.
Unresolved disputes with the US and western Europe overshadow Iran's foreign relations. These involve Iran's military (including nuclear) policies; support for terrorism abroad; the Arab-Israeli dispute; human rights. Since 1993, Iran has been the object (along with Iraq) of what the US administration calls a policy of "dual containment." Since 1996 it has been subject to economic sanctions under the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act: any non-US firm investing more than $40m a year in Iranian oil or gas will be punished. Anti-Iranian sentiment in Congress is strong, fuelled in part by Israel, but also reflecting continued US anger at the hostages crisis of 1979-1981, and suspicion that Iran was involved in the bombing of US personnel in Saudi Arabia in 1995. The Europeans diverge in some measure from the US position; they oppose the Sanctions Act. But they have their own issues of dispute with Tehran: Britain's Salman Rushdie affair dates from 1989; Germany has the Berlin court decision of April 1997 which found the Iranian regime responsible for the killing of Kurdish opposition leaders in 1992.
These are not trivial issues, and they generate as much heat inside Iran as outside. Anger at the west remains strong in a country which, although never colonised, was subject to repeated interference by outside powers in the last two centuries. Iran has not invaded another country since the 18th century. Despite all the clamour about Iran's wrong-doing, it is worth remembering that others have treated the country much worse. Russia seized a chunk in the 19th century; and although a non-belligerent, Iran was invaded by foreign powers, including Britain, in both world wars. In 1953 its elected government was undermined by the CIA and MI6. Most recently, the world sat and watched Iraq invade Iran in September 1980, in violation of the UN charter.
In the politics of west Asia, Iran is not the biggest culprit. The main source of instability in the Caspian region is Russia. In Afghanistan, the greatest source of instability is, and has been, Pakistan. (With the indulgence of the west and Saudi money, it has intervened in and destabilised Afghanistan for the past two decades.) In the Gulf, the main problem is Iraq, which has twice invaded its neighbours, and which refuses to this day to accept the legitimacy of a Kuwaiti state. As for the Arab-Israeli dispute and the related issue of Lebanon, Iran has played an inflammatory role-but is hardly the source of the problem. Rafsanjani made a point of meeting Yasser Arafat early in 1997, and the Palestinian chairman attended the Islamic summit in Tehran in December. Both of these actions indicate an Iranian willingness to work with the Arab-Israeli peace process. Iran is a big player in middle east politics and has to be included in diplomatic processes. This seems to be the view of the Netanyahu government, which has toned down Israeli criticism of Iran.
Khatami's election and the nomination of a new foreign minister have brought some shift in the west. Washington has decided that an agreement on piping gas from Turkmenistan to Turkey via Iran does not violate the 1996 Sanctions Act. Announcements by French companies that they will invest in Iran have, to date, produced little US response. The US even sent a message of congratulation when Iran qualified for the soccer world cup finals. But the broader antagonism remains. It is reasonable to assume, denials notwithstanding, that Iran has been developing a military nuclear programme (as did the Shah)-if only as a deterrent in a dangerous part of the world. But the only way to tackle this is to work towards building a regional security structure in which Iran's concerns would be recognised.
It remains to be seen how far Khatami can end political repression within Iran and bring the security services under his control. That said-and as the presidential election showed-Iran's political system is more open and democratic than that of any other state in the Gulf, and more than most in the middle east. Past crimes-the hostages crisis, the death threat to Rushdie, the Kurdish murders in Germany-should not be an insurmountable obstacle to better international relations. But Khatami's opponents within have not given up, and will resist normalisation of relations with the west. What cannot be stopped is the continued evolution of Iranian society and its younger generation's desire for change.
