Iran’s Khatami Fosters Climate of Change

A year after his stunning upset election victory, President Mohammad Khatami has defied conservative political sabotage at home and engaged long-standing rivals abroad to craft the framework for a new era in Iran.

The process--and the battles that go with it--is far from over.

“Iranian society is still in the midst of a deep, historic transition. Many traditional ways of behavior are drastically being changed,” said Ibrahim Yazdi, a leading politician. “The problem is that we have not yet developed acceptable formulas to replace the old ways.”

Other political confrontations, such as the national scandal sparked by the arrest of Tehran’s mayor last month, will almost certainly erupt during the reformist president’s four-year term, analysts here predict. And Khatami still does not have control over key levers of power, which limits the possible scope of change.

But the new president’s popularity--and mandate--is even stronger today than when he overwhelmed the clergy-endorsed favorite and two other candidates with 70% of the vote a year ago.

In an unprecedented display of support for any president since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, tens of thousands of Iranians paraded through Tehran on Saturday with banners declaring “Khatami, we love you” and “We are ready to sacrifice our life for you.”

“Khatami has proven very skillful in going on the offensive. Any time he’s been attacked, he’s been able to push others back,” said Hadi Semati of the Research Institute for Mideast Studies in Tehran.

As a result, new political discourse and greater public freedoms are finally allowing the Islamic Republic to focus on the last but most difficult issue of its revolution: how to modernize and institutionalize Islam so that the emphasis is on political and economic empowerment, not just ideology.

“People today care as much about a stable republic with the rule of law as about Islamic correctness,” said Tehran University political scientist Nasser Hadian.

That does not mean diminishing Islam. In the event of spiritual problems, the number for the Voice of the Holy Koran is still listed among the emergency numbers--with police, fire and ambulance--in Iranian telephone books and newspapers. Legislation and school curricula still have to have an Islamic stamp of approval.

A Challenge to Clergy

The past year has, however, featured a new balance and less fanaticism. So while Iranian television remains tediously bland, a stage version of “Les Miserables” in Persian just finished a sold-out six-month run at the Bahman Cultural Center here. It was replaced by a Moliere farce.

Tehranis actually defied the clergy this month during Ashura, which commemorates the heroic martyrdom of the prophet Muhammad’s grandson that triggered Islam’s greatest schism and the birth of Shiite Islam 13 centuries ago.

The faithful were told not to parade with feather-bedecked black mantles, or alam, because they resemble crosses, and not to play drums, since music is publicly banned during the mourning rite. But the drums and mantles were out in force as dozens of noisy parades wound through downtown boulevards and neighborhood streets.

Ashura this year had the joyous atmosphere of a street party as men, women and children turned out on the warm spring nights for public plays, parades, free food and candlelight processions.

“This could never have happened before Khatami,” an awed merchant said.

Debates about religion, once the agent of conformity, now turn to talk of pluralism. In daring articles and speeches this spring, Iran’s leading philosopher has challenged a central concept expressed in daily Muslim prayer for 13 centuries entreating God to lead believers to “the right path.”

“Many say the only right path is Islam and the rest stray or are deviant. I argue that there are many right paths,” said Abdul Karim Soroush, who was squeezed out of several jobs by the previous government and physically attacked by religious radicals. Now the crowds at his public lectures on Wednesday evenings spill into the streets.

Soroush is one of a growing number of thinkers exploring the compatibility of Islam and democracy.

The biggest single problem for Khatami is that these bold, new ideas from Iran’s budding civil society have spawned an equally bold backlash.

At a meeting of military officers Thursday, Brig. Gen. Mohammed Ali Jafari warned that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards “are ready to be sacrificed for Islam and the revolution.”

“The whispers of an end to the revolutionary era are all plots which can only be foiled by the alertness of an active revolutionary force. We should not be afraid of saying what is right or waver in defending the revolution’s values,” he said.

Support Is Widespread

Whether the guards or any other force could really challenge the government is widely disputed--in part because most of the rank and file in all branches of the military voted for Khatami, Iranian analysts say.

“To go back to a strict religious regime like in the early 1980s would require a use of force of the magnitude of a Stalin or a Mao and would alienate or lose many important figures in both the military and the clergy,” added a long-serving diplomat here.

The more practical day-to-day challenge for Khatami comes from conservatives who still have a hold on parliament, the judiciary and internal security forces. Their patron is Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, who wields the ultimate veto.

The conservatives lost a round in the arrest of Tehran’s reformist mayor, Gholamhossein Karbaschi, a pivotal Khatami political ally, when public outcry and the threat of demonstrations led Khamenei to order his release. Karbaschi has yet to face trial, but he is likely to either escape graft charges or receive minimal punishment.

“Differences among factions are great, but they’re all interested in preventing developments that jeopardize the stability of the state. In the end, they’ll settle disputes to avoid anything too risky,” said a Western envoy.

The case does not, however, represent a pure victory for Khatami’s supporters. Before the arrest, Iran’s politicos were engrossed in debate on four issues critical to political change:

* The power of the Council of Guardians, a religious oversight committee, to disqualify candidates, such as a former Cabinet minister who had won 11 votes of confidence.

* Judicial excesses, including the arrest of several deputy mayors.

* Police failure to rein in religious hooligans of Ansar-e Hezbollah, or Helpers of the Party of God, who regularly attack and intimidate their enemies.

* Media bias on Iranian television and radio, particularly during elections.

Growing public pressures threatened to diminish conservative influence in all four areas. But as Khatami’s forces expended political clout on the mayoral crisis, debate was shelved.

Both insiders and envoys here claim that the rivalry is part of what has become an evolutionary rather than a revolutionary process.

“This is not a clash, just the expression of different schools of thought, and we’re glad to see it happen,” said Gholam Reza Shirazian, a conservative member of parliament who attended Iowa State and Auburn universities.

Others contend that Iran’s political landscape differs little from that of the United States: a president elected in a popular mandate for change facing a legislature dominated by feisty conservatives; multiple investigations into corruption; and back-room politicking and nasty public exchanges.

For now, Khatami still has the edge over well-organized and well-oiled conservatives.

“There will be stops and starts as the two sides maneuver for gains, but movement is irreversible because conservatives have no answers to questions from society today,” a European envoy said.

The president also has his mandate to fall back on. “The forces that elected Khatami remain his leverage over others,” said Yazdi, whose outlawed Freedom Movement is now applying for official recognition.

“Those who oppose him neglect this phenomenon. They think if they confront him or sabotage his program of political liberalization and social relaxation, they will succeed. But they are wrong. This is something that is coming, and no one can stop it.”

Economic Pitfalls Cited

The one problem that could undermine that mandate is the economy, which Khatami has conceded is “sick.” The challenge plays out on three fronts.

First is income. Because of plummeting oil prices, budget calculations based on $18 a barrel were downgraded to reflect a price of $16.50 and then $12. Oil revenue--which accounts for 85% of Iran’s hard-currency earnings and half of government receipts--will probably not exceed $10 billion this year. And the country has a foreign debt repayment of $5 billion due this year.

Second is demographics. Khatami’s biggest constituency was young people, who account for more than half of Iran’s 63 million people. Severe unemployment, somewhere between the official 11% and economist estimates as high as 20%, looms as unprecedented numbers of young Iranians enter the labor market.

“An army of unemployed will double in size soon,” Ali Reza Mahjub, secretary-general of the Union of Workers, warned recently. “Since Iran has 37 million young people under 24 years old, the country is soon going to experience a 100% increase in unemployment.”

Third is the cost of badly needed reforms. The changes on Khatami’s agenda--privatization, more foreign investment, subsidy cuts and reducing reliance on petrochemicals--would have an immediate impact on his constituency, which is most heavily dependent on food subsidies and government employment.

Yet the average GNP growth rate has hovered near 4% for the last few years.

“That’s not high, but what Asian ‘tiger’ can claim that today? Besides oil, Iran also has the world’s second-highest gas reserves, so its wealth is not based on paper as in other parts of Asia,” a European diplomat said.

Ironically, Khatami’s goal of moving from revolution to reform received a major boost last week from the United States, when the Clinton administration decided to waive sanctions against a European-Asian consortium that plans the biggest foreign investment in Iran since the 1979 revolution, a $2-billion deal to develop offshore gas fields.

The waiver is likely to encourage other foreign investors who had deferred similar decisions out of fear that they too might face U.S. sanctions, analysts here predict.