Charting a New Course

The most profound change in the Middle East today is not the passing of the old guard: Syria’s Hafez Assad, Jordan’s King Hussein, Morocco’s King Hassan II and Bahrain’s Sheikh Isa ibn Salman Khalifa. What makes the transition historic is the transformation of political systems, the evolution of ideas and the acknowledgment that legitimacy comes from broad public participation, top to bottom, not strong leaders at the top. Call it the rumblings of democracy.

In no place is this change more striking than in Iran, Syria’s closest ally.

For a generation, the two states have been partners in aiding and abetting the militias posing the greatest threat to Israel. Their intervention in Lebanon--both still have troops there--was instrumental in changing the internal balance of power between Christian and Muslim factions. Together, they directly and indirectly redefined the tactics of low-intensity warfare and extremism--a.k.a. terrorism.

Today, however, Iran represents what’s new in the region, while Syria reflects the last vestiges of an old and obsolete ideology. Tehran is awash with new politicians, and power is being widely distributed in local and national elections. The transition hasn’t been easy. It still has a long way to go. Every few steps forward usually follow a step or two backward. But the days of a single leader--Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini during the revolution’s first decade and President Hashemi Rafsanjani during the second--are over. Public determination and the brazen grit of a growing number of reformers are ending a tradition of autocratic rule that dates back more than 2,500 years.

Dozens of examples illustrate the spread of power, but three are particularly telling.

Saeed Hajjarian still has a bullet in the back of his head after a gunman and two accomplices tried to kill him as he walked into Tehran’s city hall last March. His survival was initially doubtful; he lay in a coma for more than a week. Now he can wiggle his toes, lift his knees and arms and wave awkwardly. But his mind is there, and doctors say he’ll recover at least 80% to 90% of his physical abilities.

A former deputy intelligence minister, Hajjarian is a leader of the transition. He was targeted because he emerged as the architect of Iran’s reform movement after the 1997 election of President Mohammad Khatami. His newspaper, Sobh-e Emrooz, unearthed secrets of past intelligence misadventures, investigated corruption and published scathing criticism of the forces blocking reform. To prove the importance of distributing power beyond central government, he ran for office when Iran held its first nationwide elections for city councils, bringing almost 200,000 to power across the country. He won an overwhelming mandate for Tehran’s council.

Hajjarian’s political career is also a microcosm of the obstacles ahead. Besides the assassination attempt, his paper faced more than 100 charges issued by the conservative-controlled judiciary. Then it was banned altogether this spring, along with 18 other papers.

Yet, he and others are upbeat, even at a huge personal cost.

“Why should I be pessimistic?” Hajjarian asks. “I’m still alive. And people are with the reformers or we wouldn’t be steadily gaining ground. Now we have the presidency, the municipal councils and the largest share of parliament. There are enough of us now for reforms to move forward.”

Wasn’t the shooting a signal of how far the extreme conservatives and their surrogates will go to block change?

“Slowly, step by step, they’ll become supporters of reform, too. They have no alternative. It’s the will of the people, and they’ll have to compromise to survive politically,” Hajjarian replies.

Seven men, including the assassin and his accomplices, are on trial for the shooting. Although many Iranians believe the plot doesn’t stop there, they concede their capture and prosecution, rather speedily, represent a beginning.

Jamileh Kadivar is another symbol of Iran’s difficult but now virtually irrevocable transformation. The sweet-faced mother of four, including a 6-month-old baby, is half of Iran’s political power couple. Her career has witnessed a meteoric rise. Appointed an advisor to Khatami in 1997, she was elected to Tehran’s city council in 1999, and, last February, she won the second-highest vote in Iran’s parliamentary election--and the highest vote ever received by a woman running for office. The poll swept in reformers and ended a generation of domination by conservatives. Last month, she was seriously considered as deputy speaker of parliament.

Her husband is Ataollah Mohajerani, the minister of Islamic culture and guidance who gave voice to reform by issuing licenses for independent newspapers and relaxed many of the regime’s most rigid cultural restrictions. Kadivar’s brother, Mohsen, is one of the two most popular young reformist clerics who are urging changes that blend Islam and democracy, tradition and modernity.

It hasn’t been easy for any of them. Conservatives tried to have Jamileh Kadivar disqualified for running for both offices. The former conservative parliament almost didn’t confirm her husband’s appointment in 1997 and a year later tried to impeach him. He has faced constant criticism from the conservatives, who this spring banned many of the papers he allowed to open. Mohsen Kadivar is in prison for “disseminating lies and disturbing public opinion” for articles comparing practices in the Islamic republic with repressive controls on freedom of expression under the monarchy. He also questioned the powers and righteousness of the theocracy.

But Jamileh Kadivar is also defiantly optimistic. “Putting my brother in prison only made him more popular. Before, his ideas were limited to seminary students. Now everyone knows them, and he has followers across the country. Next month, he’ll be freed, and he’ll return to his activities,” she explains.

“My husband is still in the ministry, and the first legislation of the new parliament will be to ensure the rights of the press, which will make them even more free to operate. Through his actions, he’s taken the debate outside limited political circles and made culture the forum of change--and brought the public in on the debate,” she continues.

“And me, well, they’re worried that I, a woman, can make big changes. That’s actually reassuring, because it means women are important in Iranian politics,” she says, smiling broadly.

Abdollah Nouri is Iran’s most popular reformist cleric. Over the past three years, his views have swept the nation and won overwhelming support, particularly among the young under 25, who account for 65% of Iran’s population. A former vice president and interior minister under Khatami, he was widely expected to be the new speaker of parliament after February’s election. Then, in a blatant attempt to block his candidacy, a special court for the clergy charged him with “un-Islamic activities” and sentenced him to five years in jail. His newspaper was also banned.

Before he was imprisoned, Nouri spent his last night of freedom outlining his ideas to his younger brother, Ali Reza. He talked about everything from the need for free speech to the importance of finding and holding accountable the assassins of Iranian dissidents, from the need for separation of mosque and state to questions about why Iranian women are encouraged to wear black.

Ali Reza Nouri, a vascular surgeon, not only listened. He ran for parliament in his brother’s stead--and won big. The youngest of eight children intends to press ahead with the agenda outlined by the oldest child in the family.

“Reform is like water. You need it to live, especially in the 21st century. If we don’t accept reform, we will automatically be isolated,” Nouri says.

The reformers still don’t control key centers of power, from the judiciary to Revolutionary Guards. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, pledged this month that Iran will continue “to rely on the power of faith as it has done in the past. It will only follow the course set by the Imam, referring to the revolution’s late leader, Ayatollah Khomeini.

But the ideas of reform are spreading. And Iran is no longer dependent on a single political dynasty to hold it together.

Syria should be so lucky.