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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sun Tzu who wrote (97250)	5/2/2003 6:04:11 PM
From: EJhonsa	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

No way! The best way to look at this, is to think of Khatami as akin to Gorbochev [sp?] He wants to establish changes which will maintain the integrity of the regime at the expense of large scale shifts in policies. Perhaps, but there's one key difference between the two: Gorbachev, as General Secretary of the Soviet Politburo, wielded plenty of real political power. Khatami these days is little more than a glorified PR guy for a ruling clique of Islamists that desperately needs one. It's been six years now since he was first elected President, and to what degree has he succeeded in carrying out his much-hyped reforms? The Iraqi Information Minister has managed to deliver on more promises than this guy. Compare this to the number of policies that Gorbachev had implemented by 1989 related to his Glasnost and Perestroika programs. Granted, one could argue that the Gorbachev parallel is a big reason why the Islamists are hell-bent on blocking any and all parts of Khatami's agenda, but that's besides the point. In a political environment where the Islamists call nearly all the shots, and Khatami after six years neither leaves the system nor makes any aggressive moves to stand in their way, choosing instead to hang around and defend an unreforming regime against its detractors, he has to be viewed as being no better than they are, regardless of what his actual opinions happen to be. Eric