Khatami Seen Taking on the Establishment in Iran
By Steve Macko, ERRI Risk Analyst
Since taking office five months ago as Iran's president, analysts see Mohammad Khatami as taking a big political gamble in his calling for closer ties with the United States. His move appears to have popular backing from the populace, but is opposed by the hard-line clergy that has ruled Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
The result may come down to an open power struggle between hard-liners and moderates in Iran. Even with Khatami's gesture to the United States, the hard-liners appeared to resume their attacks against the moderates on Sunday with the arrest of Ebrahim Yazdi, who is the leader of Iran's token legal opposition group.
According to a statement by the opposition Freedom Movement, Yazdi was summoned to a revolutionary court for questioning and was then taken to Evin prison in north Tehran. No charges have been filed against him. It should be noted that the Iranian judiciary is controlled by hard-liners.
Since being sworn in as Iran's president on 4 August, Khatami has called for more freedom of speech and has relaxed press censorship. Yazdi's group had been operating with Khatami's blessing, and his arrest appears to be an effort to tarnish the new government's image.
As we have reported in the past, Khatami won a landslide election victory in May. The victory came to the dismay of hard-liners. Khatami has popular support in his bid to change Iran's foreign policy because Iranians have grown tired of being cast as a pariah state by the United States and the West. Although ERRI analysts have been skeptical that the Khatami vrs. Khamenei clashes have been some sort of an aggrandized "good cop-bad cop" routine, it is appearing more and more that Khatami may be sincere in his efforts at rapprochement with the West.
More than half of Iran's 60 million population are too young to even remember the U.S.-backed shah who was overthrown in the 1979 Islamic revolution. For them, the ever present chant of "death to America" has little meaning.
Make no mistake about it, there is a change taking place in Iran. Last month, the religious government was rocked when a senior cleric, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, questioned the legitimacy of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is revered across the board by hard-liners. Without any apparent evidence, the hard-liners have accused Yazdi of being behind the move.
Montazeri's home in the holy city of Qom was reportedly attacked by Muslim militants, and he was forced to escape under police protection after he criticized Khamenei in a lecture.
There is no doubt that Khamenei, whose powers are virtually unlimited, has been the main obstacle for Khatami's reforms. He has strong control over foreign policy, the interior and intelligence ministries, and the armed forces.
Analysts believe that Montazeri did serious damage to the idea that Khamenei was beyond question or criticism when he asked whether a non- elected leader should be more powerful than the elected president. It is seen that Khatami has gained immensely from Montazeri's move. It now appears that Khamenei can no longer veto Khatami on important issues without exposing himself to criticism. So, in essence, this despot has been weakened somewhat.
Khamenei still controls foreign policy and is vehemently anti-American. He could quash Khatami's opening gesture to the United States. However, he has been surprisingly silent since Khatami announced Sunday that he wants to start a dialogue with the American people.
The hard-liners have also maintained a silence since Khatami's comments about the United States and may not attack him head-on for fear of a popular backlash.
This may pose another problem. Some Iranians say that they fear for the safety of Khatami, who travels around Tehran with minimum security.
Said one observant Iranian civil servant, "Mr. Khatami is going against nearly the whole establishment, and there are powerful forces who may try to stop what he is doing at any cost."
If there is an attempt on Khatami's life -- this will be further evidence of what the international community is actually dealing with in Iran and what their true intentions really are.