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Shadows of Dictatorship

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The clergy-led revolution that sent the shah of Iran fleeing into exile will mark its 25th anniversary next month. The hard-line mullahs who succeeded the shah and who jail pro-democracy activists, shut newspapers that they consider liberal and try to steal parliamentary elections should remember that the shah’s reign lasted a bit less than 26 years.

Revolution may not be in the air, but there is no doubting that many Iranians despise the hard-line clerics as much as their parents did the shah.

The 1997 election of a moderate Islamic scholar, President Mohammad Khatami, raised hopes of political liberalization. His reelection in 2001 by a wide margin kept those hopes alive despite his inability to sway Iran’s supreme arbiters, the religious authority known as the Guardian Council.

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Just as important as Khatami’s presence has been the election to Iran’s parliament of reformers unhappy with the fundamentalists; the 290 members now include an estimated 200 reformers.

Unfortunately, the anti-reform forces still get the last word. Over the weekend, members of Iran’s parliament announced that the Guardian Council had disqualified more than 25% -- perhaps as many as half -- of the more than 8,000 candidates in next month’s elections, many would-be reformers among them.

This should be a make-or-break issue for Khatami. He has already watched the Guardian Council veto laws that parliament passed to reduce political prosecutions, expand press freedoms and investigate charges of torture by the brutal security forces.

The president should confront the council and the country’s “supreme leader,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and demand that they reverse the disqualifications or face Khatami’s resignation.

The conservatives, stunned by their losses in the 2000 parliamentary elections, don’t want to risk losing again. Their claims that those disqualified from running had violated fundamentalist rules of Islam or committed vague crimes are laughable.

Half of Iranians are under age 20, so they did not experience the euphoria that greeted the overthrow of the shah and his corrupt, brutal security forces.

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Instead, the young see nearly half the population living in poverty despite great oil and natural gas reserves. They chafe under social and political restrictions imposed by Khamenei and the six clerics he appoints to the 12-member Guardian Council.

Any stiffening of repression may lead to violent protest, another match lighting tinder in a volatile region. Iranians suffered in one way under the secular shah and in another under the religious excesses of the ayatollahs. Offering elections but removing the right to freely run for office is a step backward into the shadows of dictatorship.

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