Real bad juju brewing in Iran. If these reports from the London Financial Times are true then the "Reform Movement" in Iran is over - Kaput. This will leave only one alternative for Iranian opponents of the regime - Revolution.
Iranian hardliners set to wrest power from Khatami
By Guy Dinmore and Najmeh Bozorgmehr in Tehran
Published: December 14 2002 4:00 | Last Updated: December 14 2002 4:00
news.ft.com
Hardline conservative clerics in Iran are preparing for a takeover of power to save the Islamic regime from internal collapse.
Official sources inside the establishment say the hardliners, supported by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, have resolved to reject controversial legislation championed by Mohammad Khatami, the moderate president, and face the consequences should he resign.
The country's crisis is deepening against a backdrop of student unrest, but the conservatives appear confident. Hardline clerics hope Mr Khatami's departure, or his survival as a powerless figurehead, will finish the reformist movement he has championed since his election in 1997.
Mohammad-Reza Khatami, brother of the president and leader of the largest pro-reform party in parliament, yesterday delivered a bleak assessment of the power struggle. Hardliners, he said, had complete control over the conservative camp, silencing moderates.
"The extremists have taken the country closer to the culmination of this crisis," Mr Khatami said, adding that they planned to foment unrest and the pretext to declare a state of emergency. The hardliners, he said, had given up all pretence of democracy in attempts to eliminate reformists.
If the president resigned and there were a public backlash, the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij paramilitary forces deemed loyal to the system appear ready to restore order. Students say the crackdown has begun, with arrests of activists and Islamist vigilante attacks on their rallies.
Khatami heads for defeat after long battle with conservatives
By Guy Dinmore
Published: December 14 2002 4:00 | Last Updated: December 14 2002 4:00
news.ft.com
The looming showdown between Mohammad Khatami, Iran's moderate president, and his hardline opponents is the culmination of five crisis-ridden years characterised by arrests, political trials, mass closure of liberal newspapers and the undermining of all his attempts to reach out to the US.
Mr Khatami's mission was to bequeath a legacy of religious democracy, an Islamic system that would respect civil rights and become a role model for other Muslim states bridging the divide with the western world.
But according to sources in the conservative-dominated establishment, the popular president, twice elected by a landslide, could not prevail in a triangular power struggle with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, and Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the former president.
"Like it or not, this is a system based on religion, not democracy," explained one source.
Mr Rafsanjani, who supported Mr Khatami in the 1997 election but was later repudiated by radical reformists, is positioning himself to play a key role in a future administration and set aside his own differences with Ayatollah Khamenei.
Should the president have no option but to resign, the new administration would focus on heading off social unrest by tackling the economy, largely by drawing on $25bn in foreign exchange reserves accrued under Mr Khatami's prudent fiscal policies.
Abbas Maleki, former deputy minister under Mr Rafsanjani, says Mr Khatami's administration wasted five years, obsessed with political reform. "The Khatami government destroyed the primary needs of the people. Tehran water is not pure, bread and meat became contaminated. The housing system was destroyed. Time has stopped since 1997." Mr Maleki expects the next government to be "pro-Rafsanjani" but not headed by him.
How long an alliance between Ayatollah Khamenei and Mr Rafsanjani would survive under internal and external pressures is open to question. On fundamental issues of foreign policy, social affairs and the economy, there are deep divisions between the more pragmatic Mr Rafsanjani and the ideologically driven hardliners.
Without Mr Khatami, Iran would be open to more pressure from the US, which has branded the Islamic republic part of an "axis of evil". Rapprochement with the European Union would also suffer. On the domestic front, however, the hardliners are encouraged that campus rallies, which erupted last month in defence of an aca demic condemned to death for apostasy, had attracted neither a critical mass of students nor significant public support. A crackdown is proceeding with arrests of students and attacks on their rallies by Islamist vigilantes.
Some moderate conservatives, such as Taha Hashemi, a cleric and editor of the centrist daily Entekhab, believe there is still a chance of politicians holding the middle ground, led by the president and backed by the supreme leader. "I am sure Khatami will distance himself from extremists [in his coalition] and the rightists will distance themselves from the fanatical current," he says. But he also warns that the reform movement would be overthrown if it tried to move too quickly.
The establishment sources said, however, that the supreme leader was under too much pressure, especially from the clerical power centre of Qom, to protect the president. When or even if Mr Khatami will carry out his threat to resign remains a tantalising question to both allies and opponents. Mr Maleki is confident he will remain "to serve the people". But Mostafa Tajzadeh, a former deputy interior minister close to the president, believes he will indeed quit if his proposed legislation is blocked.
As they stand, two laws proposed by the president would weaken the judiciary's ability to hold political trials, and the authority of the hardline Council of Guardians to eliminate parliamentary candidates.
The parliament's large reformist majority wants to pass the bills within weeks, despite efforts by conservatives to delay them with 2,000 proposed amendments. The Guardians, hardliners say, would then exercise their veto power. If parliament sends the bills on to the Expediency Council, Mr Rafsanjani, who heads the arbitrating body, would also reject them.
Parliament's last recourse would be to call a referendum. That too would be blocked by the supreme leader, triggering the president's resignation, according to the scenario envisaged by hardliners.
Mr Khatami did write a resignation letter a year ago, sources close to him said, but he withdrew it after President George W. Bush's "axis of evil" speech.
Some analysts believe an overt threat to Iran's national security, perhaps through a US-led invasion of Iraq, could persuade Mr Khatami to stay. Conservatives recognise that the president has bestowed needed legitimacy on the Islamic regime at home and abroad. The threat of direct US intervention could, in their eyes, still give Mr Khatami a useful role. |
