Iran’s Dinosaurs at Work

Terrorists in Iran now seek to undo what free choice at the ballot box aimed to achieve. On Sunday, Saeed Hajjarian, a key organizer of the Feb. 18 parliamentary triumph by reformists and a confidant of moderate President Mohammad Khatami, was shot and critically wounded. On Monday, mortar fire fell in a residential area that is home to five members of parliament. The circumstances of that attack, near a base of the hard-line Revolutionary Guards, are murky. But there is nothing ambiguous about the effort to assassinate Hajjarian, a newspaper editor and bold critic of the excesses of the conservative clerics who hold most of the power. It’s highly probable that extremists within the government, determined to maintain control and prepared to use ruthless means to intimidate their opponents, were behind it.

Three times in the last three years, in local and parliamentary elections and in the overwhelming vote given Khatami in 1997, Iranians expressed their weariness with the stifling repressions they have had to live under since the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Last month’s vote on the 290-member legislature was a stunning call for change. Hajjarian had strongly urged the legislators to move quickly to codify a program of moderate reforms when they convene in May. His newspaper was also among those that have connected high-level officials with scores of political assassinations.

Most Iranians are eager for greater freedoms and political pluralism and wish for an end to their country’s international isolation. That’s why there is such strong support for changing policies, including improving relations with the United States, something Washington should welcome. Terrorism must not be permitted to negate the elections that have brought Iran to this crucial post-revolutionary turning point.