Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

DATE=08/18/2001

TYPE=ON THE LINE

NUMBER=1-00978

TITLE=ON THE LINE: IS IRANIAN REFORM FINISHED?

EDITOR=OFFICE OF POLICY 619-0037

CONTENT=

THEME: UP, HOLD UNDER AND FADE

Anncr: On the Line a discussion of United States policy and contemporary issues. This week, "Is Iranian Reform Finished?" Here is your host, Robert Reilly.

Host: Hello and welcome to On the Line. Iran's president, Mohammad Khatami, won a second term as president in an election closely regulated by Iran's religious authorities. Mr. Khatami won by an even greater margin than in 1997. Mr. Khatami had limited success in his first term, describing it as a "tunnel of crisis." Hard-line Muslim clerics in control of the judiciary, military, and the media blocked most of his and the parliament's efforts to liberalize Iran's fundamentalist Islamic regime. At his inauguration, President Khatami promised to push forward with reforms, but many doubt his chances for further success.

Joining me today to discuss Iran's uncertain future are three experts. Azar Nafisi is a visiting fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute at Johns Hopkins University. She formerly taught at the University of Tehran. Patrick Clawson is the director of research at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. And Suzanne Maloney is a research associate at the Brookings Institution. Welcome to the program.

Azar Nafisi, as we know, President Khatami increased his level of support to seventy-seven percent of the electorate from seventy percent earlier. Does that have any serious meaning for the future of reform in Iran?

Nafisi: Not in itself, I don't think. First of all, you notice that in the first elections, the people who supported Mr. Khatami were a variety of both secular and progressive religious forces. Most of whom were, at least the leaders of them, in jail at the time of the second elections. The second large political support Mr. Khatami had was the university students. There was a lot of conflict within the university students. If you remember, one of the meetings that Mr. Khatami participated in, there was a fight between the two factions and he had to leave the meeting. They lowered the age of voting from sixteen to fifteen. And most of the supporters or those who are enthusiastic about voting were mainly the young teenagers and women. And there was some relaxation in [regard to] "moral codes." If you look at it that way, I think politically a lot of important people were put aside or were lukewarm in their support. Does this mean that there won't be any changes in Iran? I think that is wrong. I think, regardless of what Mr. Khatami will do, we will see a continuation of support for change in the country.

Host: Patrick Clawson, during his last term as president, three and a half years into his first term first as president, Mr. Khatami said that "I don't have sufficient powers to implement the constitution, which is my biggest responsibility. In practice, the president is unable to stop the trend of violations or force implementation of the constitution." Has anything changed since then as a result of either his election or the way in which he was inaugurated, which leads you to believe that he can now implement the constitution?

Clawson: Something has changed over the last year. We have seen the judiciary become much more active in Iranian affairs and do a lot of things which, by my reading, would be against the constitution, like questioning members of the parliament for speeches that they gave on the parliament floor. And this judiciary has strong supporters of the hard-liner wing. So Mr. Khatami faces an enhanced problem, a stronger problem than in the past. Meanwhile, we don't see any indications that Mr. Khatami is going to mobilize his supporters because he has a great many people who are behind him. And if he would have asked them to come out on the street to demonstrate their support for him, that might quite a bit change the calculations of the hard-liners. But he doesn't want to do that. He is afraid of instability.

Host: Suzanne Maloney, what's your reaction to what you have heard here?

Maloney: I have a slightly different assessment, I think, to both the analysis of the meaning of the election itself and the prospects of what Khatami can and will do in the future. I think that, in fact, the level of support, which was really unexpected both from analysts within Iran, as well as, even more so, from analysts outside of Iran, that the president received in the second election really vindicates his approach of moderation and compromise and conciliation. Certainly, there are many within the reform movement who would prefer a more aggressive approach to reform. And, frankly, I think many within the Iranian population would prefer a much quicker pace of reform and a wider scope of the changes taking place.

Host: What about Patrick Clawson's point that Khatami is even more hobbled in his second term than he was in his first because of the moves on the part of the judiciary?

Maloney: No one can deny, in fact, that the judiciary has been intensely active over the past four years and, previously, before the election of Khatami. All of these trends really reflect long-standing policies within the Islamic republic. So I don't think it's necessarily accurate to isolate it simply to the tenure of Mr. Khatami. Clearly, there is this battle brewing between the judiciary, the parliament, and some of the reform factions. And I think that what you're seeing is they lead up, potentially, to a discussion of future constitutional changes. It's important to remember, of course, that Iran's system of government has always been evolving since the initiation of the Islamic republic. There were constitutional changes eleven years ago and it's very likely that we will see something of a discussion of that in the future.

Host: What signs of evolution do you detect in the controversy around the inauguration itself, which was delayed for three days by Ayatollah Khamenei over the appointment of two members of the Council of Guardians? There certainly appeared to be a humiliation of Khatami and a demonstration of his impotence.

Clawson: More a humiliation of parliament, a diminution of parliament's powers. And Suzanne says what you have seen now in Iran is evolving constitutional change, and that evolving constitutional change has been to reduce the powers of elected positions, like that of the president of the parliament, and to expand the powers of appointed positions from the supreme religious leader, and to expand the powers of the judiciary. So what we've seen is that the space for elections is diminished. That's why I think this time we've had a million fewer people who voted in Tehran than did four years ago, even though the population has been increasing. So that in Tehran, in particular, what we've seen is that many people who previously supported reforms didn't show up for the elections this time. Mr. Khatami's election results were very much the product of the voting outside of Tehran. But in the system itself, what we've seen is a reduction of the role for elected positions. A lot of enthusiasm four years ago, when they voted for the first time in elections for municipalities. Well, they were stripped of all authority and they played essentially no role in making decisions about what happens in municipalities.

Maloney: They weren't actually stripped of authority. In fact, the system is still evolving and these were new offices . . . .

Host: Let's have Azar Nafisi respond to that question about the humiliation around the inauguration.

Nafisi: I think that one of the problems is what do we mean by reform? Because what we are doing is we are polarizing and dividing the Iranian society and the Iranian elite within the government into two camps: the good guys and the bad guys. The bad guys are specifically the hard-liners and the good guys all come under the umbrella of President Khatami. First of all, I think this is a mistake. In a country like Iran, even people who are opponents of the regime cannot just come out and talk. They have to create an umbrella. So many groups with different agendas, to the right and left of Mr. Khatami, will come under his umbrella. What you see has happened is that the most active proponents of reform, the journalists, the students, the progressive secular intellectuals, all of these people have been stripped of their power. The newspapers which we had, like Salam and Keyhan, during Mr. Rafsanjani's time have been shut down. People who were not killed during the past twenty years have been murdered. I think when you see that, you see that it is not Mr. Khatami, per se, who is at the center of the reform. It is the fact that the Iranian society from the beginning had this problem. We had the problem between [Mehdi] Bazargan and the hard-liners. We had the problem between Mr. Rafsanjani. . . . What I'm trying to say is that change will come to Iran, but we cannot put all our eggs in the basket of those who rule and one individual that is Mr. Khatami.

Host: Where do you put them? Because, as Patrick Clawson has been trying to point out here, all of the elected institutions of Iranian government are in the hands of reformers, even though they aren't all of one kind. And all of the non-elected organs of power are in the hands of the people whom they call the conservatives. How do you move forward from that?

Maloney: That's really the challenge that the president and, more broadly, as Dr. Nafisi suggests, the Iranian people really face over the next four years. And I think one of the issues is this contest that you see between the elected and the unelected. And it's difficult, I think, to track it on a day-to-day basis. And in effect, it's not a baseball game. The push and pull between the power of the elected representatives of the people and the appointed officials, who comprise much of the power structure of Iran, is -- I believe and I think this is supported by both the elections and the progress of the parliament in the past four years -- really moving toward the direction of the people themselves. Frankly, the Islamic Republic has a choice that it is facing. Either all-out repression or further ceding of power to the will of the people. Frankly, only the hardest liners among the conservatives are prepared to use all-out repression at this point. That reflects this constant dynamic, as Dr. Nafisi suggested, between hard-liners and more moderate camps within the Islamic government that, I believe, is really moving toward a more representative and democratic system. Obviously, that's not going to happen under the second term of President Khatami. But the question is what institutions can be put in place, what mechanisms can be created in order to facilitate that progress over the long run?

Host: Let me just take a moment to remind our audience that this is On the Line, and I'm Robert Reilly. This week we're discussing the uncertain future of Iran with Azar Nafisi from Johns Hopkins University; Patrick Clawson from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy; and Suzanne Maloney from the Brookings Institution.

Who wants to respond to that? Patrick?

Clawson: I wish the evidence supported Suzanne. But a year ago, we had an active and vigorous press. Today we don't. A year ago, we had a parliament in which people had many hopes as to what laws it would pass, what changes it would implement. It has done nothing and has been systematically blocked. So, yes, there is a clear trend in Iran. The clear trend in Iran is that the hard-liners have indicated that they don't care what it is that the people want. They believe that they have God on their side, and they are prepared to do what is necessary in order to continue with their rule.

Maloney: That's a vast oversimplification of the history of the past couple of years. . . .

Clawson: It happens to be an accurate portrayal and, if you let me continue with this rather than interrupting me, the press that we've seen in Iran has been systematically shut down. And what you've seen instead is every time a new reform paper opens up, it's closed very quickly. What we have seen is the parliament unable to pass law after law that was anticipated would happen. And what we have seen, instead, is that parliament members are now being jailed for speeches that they give in the parliament, in spite of the clear letter of the Iranian constitution not allowing it. So there is a clear evolution in one direction. And unfortunately, the hardest-line people are the people who control the secret police, the people who control the military, and the Revolutionary Guards. And they have clearly indicated that they are prepared to use force to kill people in order to stay in power, irrespective of what the election shows.

Host: Do you agree with that, Azar Nafisi?

Nafisi: I think that is why you see the stalemate. Because on one hand, the population. . . . and I just wanted to bring it to your attention that, recently, you've seen other elements enter the arena, like the workers. We have had workers sit in front of the parliament, clashes with the military police between workers and people on the margins of Tehran. They were throwing Molotov cocktails at the tractors that were coming to demolish their houses. We see, again, the things that during the first two years of the Khatami era had relaxed, like flogging, stoning, all of these are back. So you put one step forward, then two steps backwards. One of the reasons is, I think, that the hard-liners are very clever. They knew that, for them, reform means revolution. You give an inch, people want to go a whole yard. So you can't be a little pregnant. You either have to open the doors and face the consequences, or you have to clamp down.

Host: But under the scenario you just presented, evolution is not possible.

Nafisi: I think that, first of all, there is more and more disenchantment within the camps or within the individuals who supported, or who had hopes in, the government. As Mr. Clawson said, you notice that the humiliation was the parliament's because they said you can't do anything; we're going to go ahead without you. Right now, the parliament is very dissatisfied with the cabinet. This cabinet is even more conservative than the one we had before, I mean, during the Khatami elections. Someone like [Mostafa] Tajzade, who is a close Khatami aide, is criticizing it. The women in the parliament are criticizing the cabinet. Mr. Khatami, I feel sorry for him. I think his situation is tragic. But he can't just keep Iran a little pregnant.

Host: So what would reform look like at this point in Iran, in a program that Mr. Khatami could present to the parliament that would have any effect on the evolution of society?

Clawson: Press law, for instance.

Host: But they tried that last time. . . .

Nafisi: Stand firm.

Host: Stand firm? What does standing firm mean?

Maloney: I would probably set myself apart from some of these analyses. I think that, in fact, the reasons for the failure of the press law in the past were not quite as simple as, perhaps, just being blocked by the hard-liners. In fact, what you saw was this division within the reform camp itself where the more moderate reformers within the parliament were not in favor of pushing forward very quickly with a new press law last August and last September. They went along and then they were shut down by the hard-liners. But what's important in all of this is this division within the camps. And you see a growing moderation on the side of some of the conservatives, many of whom spoke during the presidential campaign about the need for reform. All of them placed themselves in the same camp as President Khatami in terms of the need for change in Iran, many of them also spoke about the need for a relationship or dialogue with the United States. We also see some of the reformers coming around to the idea that, in fact, an aggressive push for change is not going to be successful in the short term. So this idea that Khatami has really, I think, been the strongest proponent of what is incrementalism and adherence to the rule of law, even when that law, in fact, hurts his program and, in fact, has resulted in the imprisonment of many of his allies -- this is a price that he believes the reform movement must be willing to pay if it is going to make any change within the system. The alternative is disorder and revolution.

Host: Let me ask you about one concession that it appears that Ayatollah Khamenei has made. And that is: during the last term of President Khatami, the parliament tried to investigate parts of the government under Ayatollah Khamenei's control. They were sharply rebuked for trying to do that. Now, it appears that Ayatollah Khamenei has recognized parliament's right to investigate the organs of government under his control. Is that a concession of any seriousness, Patrick?

Clawson: Some of the organs -- not the security organs, and not the people who hold power. That's to say, not the people who hold the guns. Yes, it is a concession. And to the extent that Suzanne's vision is correct and that we've seen the voices of moderation growing, then, indeed, we're likely to see some kinds of concessions in a muddling through kind of scenario. But I would read the evidence in quite the opposite direction, which is to say that I am impressed by how harsh those words that are directed by the two sides are and how isolated are those who, like Mr. Khatami, talk about this incrementalism. Increasingly, what we hear from the members of the parliament, from Mr. Khatami's own camp, is criticism of him, which was unthinkable two years ago. You just didn't hear this kind of direct and open, specific personal criticism of him. Now, you do regularly. Similarly, on the hard-line side, what we see is very blunt warnings to the reformers to back off. Again, things we didn't see two years ago.

Nafisi: First of all, I don't understand what Mr. Kahatami means by "reform" because, when he first came to power, he talked about more freedom of expression, civil society, which has now changed to "religious democracy." Now he doesn't talk about civil society. He talks about "religious democracy." And he talked about the rule of law. None of these have worked. And every time his supporters go out on the streets and have a meeting, which is lawful, they're beaten up. They're jailed. They're arrested. And he calls for patience. And more and more, the positions he takes become conservative. You go over what he said when he came to power four years ago and what he is saying now, he's much closer to Khamenei's discourse than he was before. So he has backed down. How could we trust him?

Host: Suzanne Maloney, because you've written on the subject recently, because of the stalemate between these contending forces, do you foresee any change in Iranian positions that would invite a betterment in the relationship between Iran and the United States?

Maloney: No, I don't think that there is any reason to believe that there is a particular mix of overtures that can necessarily break through this long-standing impasse. And the level of political discord within Iran, which prevents either side or, certainly, the people at the top from reaching out to the United States, and that's one of the key impediments to all of this. I think, as I wrote in our policy brief in Brookings, that one of the difficulties here is that there are a lot of people in Washington who play this sort of parlor game of waiting for the next revolution in Iran. And frankly, they are repeatedly disappointed. And, in fact, what we need to do is set a policy that presumes the Islamic republic is going to be around for some time in the future, set a policy which reflects U-S national interests in engaging with that country, at least on a modest level, and beginning some economic openings.

Host: I'm afraid that's all the time we have this week. I would like to thank our guests -- Azar Nafisi from Johns Hopkins University; Patrick Clawson from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy; and Suzanne Maloney from the Brookings Institution -- for joining me to discuss Iran's uncertain future. This is Robert Reilly for On the Line.