I see your point...and it is true that Khatami does not have anywhere near the power that Gorby had. But I think his critics do not give him enough credit. During his first term Khatami did a lot of good.
True, he did get some modest reforms passed during his first couple of years in office. But it all went downhill following the 1999 riots. As I recall, when the riots were in full swing, the Revolutionary Guards presented him with an ultimatum: Denounce the riots and support the efforts to end then, or the Guards would forcibly disband his government. Khatami caved, and he's been mostly useless since.
His mistake is that he did not quit when he threatened to do so if his reforms are not met.
As you know, Khatami's threatened and backed down so many times that it's become a running joke of sorts. It begs the question of whether he'd be willing to resign under any circumstances. Perhaps he's too hungry to maintain power (or at least the illusion of it) to step down. Or perhaps, as I suspect, he actually views the status quo as being better than the purely secular regime that would likely come from a revolution. Remember that Khatami spent a few years in the '80s working in Iran's censorship bureau; that alone suggests that his ideological differences with the more radical elements opposed to the status quo are significant.
Their argument was that if Khatami steps down, a revolt may ensue that will be crushed and a lot of progress will be undone. But I think it is clear now that the people do want the fight.
Could you elaborate on what makes you think they're willing? There's only one credible opinion poll that comes close to addressing the matter, and for obvious reasons, it's likely to be the last. 90% of the opinions I see on the matter from foreign policy commentators are too clouded by ideological blinders to be worth anything. On one side, you have those who claim that the populace still has complete faith in the "reform" movement, and on the other, you have those who think that every new protest with more than a dozen people in it implies that the regime will fall within week.
Just based on the way that popular uprisings have unfolded in other countries, not to mention the 1979 Revolution, I'm somewhat skeptical about the possibility of a revolt in the immediate future. Consider the situation in Venezuela a few months ago. There you had protests numbering well into the six figures; strikes that crippled the country's most vital industries; a very high degree of organization among opposition forces; and a government that wasn't half as ruthless as the one in Tehran. Yet in the end, it wasn't enough. The scale of the protests and strikes that have occurred so far in Iran are at least an order of magnitude too low. And the regime does unfortunately appear to have succeeded in jailing a large percentage of those who could lead a successful revolt.
Maybe the presence of 150k+ American troops on the country's borders will drive the situation to reach a boiling point or compel elements in the conscript-filled Iranian military to support an uprising; it's hard to know. Though on that note, ignoring the political commentary, I found the following on-the-ground report to be interesting:
iranian.com
“We are hopeful that a number of regimes will draw the appropriate lesson from Iraq, “ said John Bolton. I asked my mother about how people on the street felt about that. She said people call Bush "Imam Zaman" (The Messiah)! They want Bush to save them like he has saved the Iraqi people. Oh no, I thought. Not my people.
Desperation does strange things to people. It drowns them in that “anything is better than this” feeling. Despair can make a person blind. Even bombs and missiles would be welcomed by some in exchange for “liberation.” Of course, they really do believe that Iraqis are being liberated. Like many Americans, Iranians have grown up with Hollywood. They’ve seen the Yankee soldier waving Old Glory and riding down the streets of some newly “liberated” city in an army tank. In the 80s, the most popular film character in Iran was Rambo. My grandfather was a huge fan of John Wayne.
Iranians love America. Or at least they love the image of America. Iranians are impressed by America’s machismo image. In my last trip to Iran, I was told by a taxi driver that “the door to heaven is somewhere in America.” Any Iranian living in the U.S. can tell you after a visit to Iran, that Iranians in Iran only want to talk about one thing, America. “How is America?” “How can I get a visa?” “You can make lots of money in America.” “American woman are beautiful.” And now “Bush is the messiah.” Bite your tongues please. Give America some time in Iraq. We shall see what will come out of the so-called “nation building” part of this endeavor.
How much do our fellow countrymen know about America? Where do they get their information? Why don’t they feel the same about India or the Philippines or Brazil? How many Iranians dream about a possible life in Finland? Not too many, I’d bet. But everyone you speak to, from your teenage cousin to your retired uncle to Mr. Hassan at the fruit stand, wants to come to America. |
