The Iranian Surprise

Mohammed Khatami, the Shiite cleric who is president of Iran, is a man full of astonishments. First, he won the presidency in 1997 in an upset victory, receiving nearly 70 percent of the popular vote. Since then, as president, he has continued to amaze observers by (1) seeking to improve Iran’s relations with the outside world, including even the erstwhile "Great Satan" (a.k.a. the United States), and (2) calling at home for respect for the rule of law, tolerance for diversity of opinions, and an Islamic civil society.

Though Khatami may not prevail, his advent, along with "widespread intellectual and cultural ferment" in the country, is "incontrovertible evidence that something dramatic" and important is occurring in Iran, maintains Fred Halliday, a professor of international relations at the London School of Economics, writing in the New Republic (Oct. 5, 1998).

Khatami’s thinking is on display in two books he has written: Fear of the Storm (1993), a collection of five essays, and From the City-World to the World-City (1994), a study of Western political thought from Plato to contemporary liberalism. "The latter book," notes Halliday, "is an argument for democracy and freedom, and for open dialogue between civilizations."

Two themes run through the volumes, observes Shaul Bakhash, a historian at George Mason University, in the New York Review of Books (Nov. 5, 1998). "First, Khatami sees Islam as a religion and civilization in crisis or, at least . . . no longer responsive to the needs of the times, whether in science, the economy, or political organization.... Second, Khatami believes that today ‘the world is the West, or lives in the shadow of Western thought and civilization.’" Muslims must acknowledge this reality, he believes, and intellectually engage Western thought.

Khatami—whom many have likened to Mikhail Gorbachev, the reformist Communist who dug the grave of the Soviet Union—has been part of Iran’s ruling clerical establishment since the 1979 revolution. Until 1992, when he was ousted as minister of culture for being too permissive, he held important positions in the Islamic Republic. Since Khatami became president, his "attempt to expand press and political freedoms has run up against strong opposition from the conservative faction among the ruling clerics," Bakhash observes. Though he has a popular mandate and controls most of the executive branch, conservative clerics outnumber his supporters in parliament. More important, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei—the successor to Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini— possesses greater powers. Khamenei controls the military and the national police, as well as the security agencies, Bakhash points out. He also names the chiefs of the judiciary, national broadcasting, and the foundation that controls the hundreds of expropriated industries and enterprises. And he names the principal members of the watchdog Council of Guardians, which "can strike down legislation it deems in violation of Islam."

Islam is not the problem, writes Shireen T. Hunter, director of Islamic studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, in the Washington Quarterly (Autumn 1998). "Islam is no more incompatible with democracy than any other religion that puts divinely inspired laws above those made by humans," she says. The problem, rather, is that the Islamist ruling class in Iran is unwilling to give up power and "bow to the will of the people." Khatami and the reformers may be able, if they overcome conservative opposition, to "soften the harsher aspects" of Iran’s political system, Hunter concludes. But they cannot achieve the president’s proclaimed aims of establishing the rule of law and creating an Islamic civil society without fundamentally changing that system.