Dr. Fairbanks wrote the following while a guest scholar at the Woodrow
Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., on sabbatical
from his position as a senior analyst at the U.S. Department of State.
When Mohammad Khatami unexpectedly won the Iranian presidential election on May 23,
1997,
hopes ran high that he would take Iran in new policy directions both at home and abroad.
At home,
that meant a relaxation of some of the strict and intrusive social policies of the
conservatives who
had monopolized politics in recent years. More attention would be paid to the needs of the
youth
population and Iranian women. Abroad, Khatami promised to ease tensions with other
nations. This
article attempts to show that he has important advantages for effecting change. He will
continue to
face stiff resistance from defenders of the status quo, but his success in August in
gaining
parliamentary approval for his entire cabinet makes it likely he will prevail.
AN AGENT FOR CHANGE
To many Iranians the election was a clear defeat for the entrenched authorities in Tehran,
in some
ways a "second revolution." Unlike previous Iranian presidential elections where
a prominent regime
figure ran against one or more no-names, this was a real contest, and the winner was not
the one
selected by those holding the reins of power. "Your election was no ordinary
one," Ayatollah
Montazeri wrote to Khatami shortly after his victory. Montazeri — Khomeini’s
one-time deputy
leader, turned regime critic and now in internal exile in Qom — called the election a
"popular
revolution against the existing conditions ... and a clear message to all the authorities
and officials of
the country."
Iranians, in Montazeri’s view, wanted change after years of empty government
promises, unfair
discrimination, mismanagement, administrative favoritism, factional monopolism and the
denial of
freedoms guaranteed by the constitution, even though they still remained faithful to Islam
and the
revolution. He wished Khatami well but warned of the opposition he would face from
narrow-minded interest groups.
Most of those who voted for him saw Khatami as an agent of change, even though he avoided
bold,
or even very specific, campaign promises. He needed to be cautious in order to allay the
concerns
of some Iranian leaders that he represented a threat to the system. As did his rivals, he
pledged his
loyalty to Iran’s unique theocratic system and its leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, and
promised to carry
on the Rafsanjani-era reconstruction programs. But more than the others, he promised to
enforce
the constitution of the Islamic Republic. His supporters interpreted this seemingly
non-controversial
promise to mean he would end the abuses of power attributed to the conservative faction
then in
power.
Along with his intellectual prowess, it was his image as an outsider and underdog that so
appealed to
the voters. The dominant conservative faction in the Majles (parliament) had pressured him
to
resign in 1992 from his position as culture minister for his insufficient enforcement of
media
censorship. The always-smiling Khatami was something of a new face to many voters,
particularly
the young, who were tired of Khatami’s election rival, Majles Speaker Nateq-Nuri.
Until Khatami
declared his candidacy in January most voters were unhappily resigned to the
speaker’s
foreordained election to succeed Rafsanjani in the presidency. Nateq-Nuri had become a
regular
fixture on nightly television newscasts — one day seen shaking hands with leaders in
Moscow, the
next day inaugurating a village water tower. Indeed, after the election a Khatami staff
member
suggested that the state television, in devoting exclusive coverage to Nateq-Nuri,
deserved a prize
for unintentionally performing the "best possible publicity" for Khatami.
No one in Khatami’s position can satisfy all of the voters’ high hopes for
change. Some of the
issues are daunting, particularly on matters of the Iranian economy, stagnating from long
years of
mismanagement and war with Iraq. The economy is not easily fixable by a new administration
that
must follow the legislated guidelines of the previous one’s five-year plan. The
relaxation of cultural
and political restrictions hoped for by many voters, particularly the youth and women,
would seem
more achievable. A conservative backlash is inevitable, and we may well see a repeat of
past
oscillations in enforcing the dress code for women and tougher Islamic strictures.
Foreign relations, though they were not a campaign issue, are also likely to improve.
Khatami’s
promises to ease tensions with the rest of the world, his stated opposition to the idea of
an inevitable
"clash of civilizations," and his appointment of a foreign minister, Dr. Kemal
Kharrazi, who had
already represented Iran capably at the United Nations, are favorable developments. But
here, too,
Khatami faces serious ideological opposition from narrow-minded conservatives guided by
their own
self-interests. They continue confrontation with the outside world, particularly America,
as an
ideological means to exclude others from power. Hopefully, calculations of Iran’s
best interests will
prevail, and that means working constructively to overcome Iran’s diplomatic and
economic
isolation.
KHATAMI’S STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES
Khatami’s main, and extremely important, strength is the huge majority of voters (20
million out of
30) who chose him in nearly every province and across class and economic lines. Khatami
supporters refer to them as a "twenty-million-strong army" for change, a
reference to Khomeini’s
call for an army of 20 million to defend the revolution. Many were first-time voters
inspired by
Khatami to join the political system and sound their voices for change. Khatami’s
"army" should
have sway with Majles deputies concerned with their own political futures. Though some
Majles
deputies are ideologically committed opponents, others may be reluctant to risk crossing
so many
constituents who had voted for Khatami. Those same voters will be choosing Majles deputies
as
well in a few years.
But his weaknesses are considerable. He has no formal party structure to back him up: he
ran as an
independent, and the technocrats and leftists that supported him are ideologically at odds
with one
another, particularly over economic policy.
The rightist faction could present serious opposition to the president-elect, particularly
over cultural
issues. But can Khatami be expected to fare any better against the right wing than
President
Hashemi Rafsanjani, who was repeatedly stymied in his economic and social reforms by the
Majles,
who in turn were allied with Ayatollah Khamenei? The conservatives are still important in
the
Majles, but they have lost the overwhelming majority that they enjoyed during
Rafsanjani’s last
term. They are also weaker because their leader, Speaker Nateq-Nuri, has lost much
prestige after
his poor showing in the presidential race.
Other potential strongholds of opposition to Khatami include the Council of Guardians, the
Intelligence Ministry, and an unknown portion of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards and the
Basij
militia. Conservative newspapers, particularly Resalat, will continue to oppose him,
though the state
radio and television, which had supported Nateq-Nuri, will probably be neutral. Several
key clerical
organizations will be serious opponents, while others, representing younger clerics in
Qom, will be
strong backers.
The revolutionary guards have the potential to intervene to protect the status quo if they
believe
Khatami intends too much change. The leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, felt obliged to send his
representative, Mr. Movahhedi-Kermani, to them on June 15 to tell them that they must
accept the
president-elect and forget about objections they had raised before the elections. But the
guards
remained suspicious of Khatami and his allies: in July, a deputy commander of the
Revolutionary
Guards warned Khatami’s "liberals" not to oppose Ayatollah Khamenei and the
role of clerics in
government. He warned that those who say that clericism cannot meet the needs of the
country's
management would face disgrace and their own political death "if one day the esteemed
Leader
allows it."
Ayatollah Khamenei remains key. As leader of the revolution, he is the constitutional head
of state.
He, not the president, sets broad policy directions, particularly on foreign policy. He
had supported
Nateq-Nuri for the presidency and could thwart Khatami just as he maneuvered against
President
Rafsanjani over the past eight years.
But it does not necessarily follow that Khamenei will automatically side with
Khatami’s hard-line
opponents. Before announcing his candidacy for the presidency, Khatami obtained consent
from
Khamenei, who probably saw Khatami as an acceptable candidate who could function as a
safety
valve for public discontent. Khatami would appeal to disaffected young voters without
undermining
the system. Khamenei saw Khatami as an acceptable person he could work with in the
unlikely
event of an upset victory.
If he concludes that power has shifted away from the right-wing hardliners, Khamenei may
well
take a different tack and ease away from some of his hard-line positions of recent years.
Khamenei
does not entirely fit his reputation as a hard-liner. When he was president he
contradicted Khomeini
by saying that Salman Rushdie could get off the hook by apologizing, for example. But when
he
inherited Khomeini’s mantle, he felt the need to espouse Khomeini’s hardest
stances to compensate
for his comparatively weak clerical credentials and, after 1993, to gain the support of
the
conservative Majles. By doing so he was able to assert his constitutional powers over
President
Rafsanjani. Whether out of his need to represent the national political will by responding
to the
popular mandate for liberalization and reform, or out of a pragmatic concern to acquire
popularity
for both himself and the regime, Khamenei has more incentives to work with Khatami than to
oppose him.
Khamenei says he will decide national issues on the basis of the consensus of the councils
who
advise him. The Supreme National Security Council and the newly expanded Expediency
Council,
with several liberal and technocrat members and Rafsanjani at its head, are more likely to
have a
significant moderating effect on Khamenei than the other way around. This could facilitate
policy
shifts that Khatami seeks. The model would be Khomeini’s 1988 decision to accept a
cease-fire
with Iraq, which he announced after all Iran’s government and factional leaders first
reached
agreement on the issue.
And then there is former president Rafsanjani, who will continue to have influence as head
of the
Expediency Council. Soon after the election, popular wisdom in Iran already had it that
Rafsanjani
was jealous of Khatami’s popularity — that, for example, he upbraided Khatami
for seeking
popularity by visiting earthquake victims in eastern Iran in June while riding in the back
of a pickup
truck. Iranians had immediately noticed the symbolic contrast with Rafsanjani’s
earlier visit to the
same area in a comfortable Mercedes.
But Rafsanjani will most likely be a source of strength for Khatami, a power behind the
scenes who
will facilitate many of the reforms Khatami hopes to make. Rafsanjani stood for the same
liberalization of social and cultural policies that Khatami stands for and had a
relatively pragmatic
foreign policy that sought to expand Iran’s relations with the rest of the world,
particularly Europe.
Rafsanjani also had it on his agenda to ease relations with the United States,
unsuccesfully using
surrogates to publicly call for direct ties with Washington.
VITAL ISSUES AT STAKE
The power struggle being played out in Iran is not simply one of individual rivalries or
simple
factional competition. There are far weightier struggles going on. This is a period of
tremendous
intellectual ferment: cultural issues, such as how or whether to resist the "cultural
onslaught" of
Western values, are debated with intensity. Khatami is seen as opposed to the ban that the
Majles,
under Nateq-Nuri’s leadership, had imposed on home satellite dishes, for example.
Women have
emerged as a serious political force and are demanding forcefully and effectively their
legal rights.
Above all, pluralism is the issue of the day, as Iranian thinkers call for establishing
the institutions of
civil society, particularly the formation of political parties that have in effect been
banned for more
than a decade. This dynamism in Iran today is what brought Khatami to power, and is what
will
continue to engender the fierce opposition of powerful leaders who want to maintain the
status quo.
Most of the conservative clerics who wield the reins of power (men like judiciary chief
Ayatollah
Mohammad Yazdi, militant clergy leader Ayatollah Mahdavi-Kani, and numerous turbaned
officials)
increasingly have come to fear for the position of the clergy in government and even for
the
fundamental principle of the Islamic Republic velayat-e faqih — the idea that only
fully-qualified
Islamic legal scholars are fit to rule.
When one of the more moderate political clerics wrote in the daily Ettelaat in June that
Khatami’s
20-million-strong army was not opposed to the clergy per se but did reject the
clergy’s patronizing
claim that only they knew what was right for the people, Resalat responded that the author
threatened to "disrupt the foundations of the Islamic system." In this
atmosphere, the popular
political philosopher Abdolkarim Sorush came under attack once again. He was prohibited
from
leaving the country for speaking engagements because of his criticisms of the official
ideological
platform and of the clergy’s domination of government, and for asserting that there
is no single
official interpretation of religion (a position that strikes at the fundamental role of
the ayatollahs).
Some clerics of the rightist faction reacted to Khatami’s election with outspoken
claims that
provoked fierce reaction among the so-called "liberals." In June, judiciary
chief Yazdi’s deputy
declared that the role of guardianship or leadership in the Islamic Republic, is more
important than
prophethood — the role of Muhammad himself — because Iran’s leadership is
charged with
preventing deviation and doubt in religion. Then, in July Yazdi himself declared outright
that
non-clerics have no right to interfere in political affairs. Salam, the vibrant Tehran
daily that is one
of Khatami’s chief bases of support, expressed outrage, citing remarks by Khomeini
that he did not
want to see a government monopolized by "a few old mullahs."
But in the months after the election, Resalat’s positions were clearly reactive to
the prevailing
situation and seemed less influential on regime thinking. It admitted it was having
difficulty rousing
public opinion because of media censorship and because "the other side" was now
prevailing.
THE TREND TOWARD PLURALISM
Iran’s 1997 election process was a stage in an evolution toward greater pluralism and
democracy.
Conservative clerics fear pluralism would threaten their domination of the important
centers of
power and would open up new paths to power outside the religious hierarchy. Pluralism
would
hasten the tides of secularism that threaten to engulf Iran. Popular demand for greater
pluralistic
expression heated up in the approach to the 1996 Majles elections, when several political
groupings
backed slates of candidates. But when the right-wing faction of the Majles conservative
clerics and
the bazaar traders allied to them saw their position threatened after the first round of
elections, they
sought to bully their moderate, "technocrat" competitors out of the arena,
denouncing them as
"liberals."
It appeared by summer 1996 that further political evolution had been squelched and that
the right
wingers would succeed in attaining a political monopoly. Once Majles Speaker Nateq-Nuri
won the
presidency, all the major branches of government would be under the control of the
rightist faction.
But once it became definite that President Rafsanjani could not seek a third term, and
that the
anti-liberal backlash had simmered down, the main organization of leftist clerics (the
Militant Clerics,
Rowhaniyun-e Mobarez) returned to political activity in the fall of 1996 to challenge
their
right-wing rivals, the long-established Militant Clergy (Rowhaniyat-e Mobarez). President
Rafsanjani had managed to engineer the ouster of the leftist bloc from the Majles in 1992,
since they
opposed his free-market reforms, but that failed to produce a more cooperative Majles. In
fact, it
proved to be a major setback to pluralism, as it allowed the dominant right wing to
consolidate its
position with increasingly repressive measures.
While this year’s election was surprisingly democratic, it was still within the
limitations set by the
conservative clergymen of the powerful Guardians Council, who vetted the candidates. For
reasons
rarely announced but clearly often partisan, the Guardians prevent numerous parliamentary
and
presidential candidates from running.
Democracy in Iran is also limited by the by the fact that true political parties are
effectively banned,
despite constitutional provisions allowing them. But in this year’s presidential
election, unlike
previous ones, political organizations ranging from the Militant Clergy and Militant
Clerics to dozens
of little-known student groups were backing presidential candidates where previously only
individual
personalities ran. This could be an important step toward the formation of what may
eventually
become real, functioning political parties. Already several of the political groups have
some of the
practical attributes of parties, including their own newspapers, which function as party
organs:
Salam for the Militant Clerics and Resalat for the Militant Clergy. Several papers,
including
Ettelaat, Akhbar, Iran, and Hamshahri, favor the technocrats.
Some conservatives argue that parties are an inappropriate Western concept and fear a
repeat of
the domination of parties by secularists at the expense of the clergy, which followed the
1906
constitutional revolution. They fear that parties, as instruments of the people, threaten
the role of the
clergy. In their view, if there are to be parties in a theocracy, they should be created
by the state in
order to carry out God’s will.
Such is the broader context of change in Iran that formed the environment for
Khatami’s election.
The issue of democracy versus theocracy is at least as important as the other factors--the
youth
vote, the increasing empowerment of women and the demand for cultural liberalization--and
helps
explain both the groundswell of support for Khatami and the intense opposition that is
likely to
continue from those who wish to maintain the status quo. Khatami is likely to prevail
against the
entrenched interests of the conservatives. In his favor are his "army of 20
million," the still-powerful
Rafsanjani, a bloc of supporters in the Majles and a broad trend toward pluralism. And if
the leader,
Ayatollah Khamenei, sees fit to decide according to national interests rather than narrow
partisan
concerns, Iranians indeed may be on the threshold of a new era.
1Ruzgar-e Now (Paris), Vol. 16, No. 4 (May-June, 1997), p. 31.
2Iran Daily, July 7, 1997, p. 2.
3Jomhuri-ye Eslami, June 16, 1997, p. 2.
4Resalat, July 7, 1997, p. 5.
5Ettelaat, June 8, 1997, p. 2.
6Resalat, June 15, 1997, p. 1.
7Resalat, June 28, 1997, p. 2.
8Hamshahri, June 9, 1997, p. 2.
9Salam, July 10, 1997, p. 2.
10Resalat, June 15, 1997, p. 16.
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