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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: lurqer who wrote (37172)	2/6/2004 11:32:24 AM
From: lurqer	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

For any following events in Iran, this is a better perspective than typically available in the American press. Indifference and Iran’s reformists Maturity, ecstasy and death come in quick succession in nature, and sometimes in politics. After years of an earnest but incoherent struggle under an unimaginative and timid leadership, Iran’s political reform movement finally balked at the recent disqualification of most of its parliamentary candidates by the right-wing Guardian Council. The reformists have flown high on several weeks of defiant liberation rhetoric, hunger strikes and audacious threats of boycotts and resignations. The star of Iran’s reform went supernova, though in the foreseeable future it may prove to be just a wet firecracker. The Bush administration, which has abandoned Afghanistan to warlordism and seems resigned to tribalism and fragmentation in Iraq, has now opted to discard “regime change” in Iran. One can almost hear the election speeches of US President George W. Bush. The administration’s capitulation to the right-wing mullahs at the moment of the reversal of American fortunes in the Middle East will be spun as Iranian capitulation in the face of Washington’s show of force in Iraq. This is no surprise. The US has put spreading democracy in the Middle East on the backburner, especially this election year. The real news from Iran is that the reformers put on a grand show of defying the widely hated Islamic troglodytes, and most Iranians didn’t care. They didn’t care about the spectacle of reformist resistance on the floor of their Parliament because they had no confidence in a disappointing movement that once embodied their political aspirations. The reformist sheen lost its luster when Iranians went to the polls in 2001 to reelect a do-nothing reformist president, Mohammad Khatami. He quickly confirmed people’s misgivings by appointing a right-wing cabinet and appeared to support the shameful measures of the right-wing judiciary against reform journalists. Khatami’s public betrayal of reform occurred against the backdrop of the emasculation of the reformist-led parliament that was elected in 1999. When Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei prevented Parliament from revising Iran’s draconian press laws, very few reformists evinced the kind of defiance that their constituents (and even their right-wing enemies) expected from them. It is true that the reformist Parliament acted as a check against further erosion of liberties and more than once blew the whistle on the right-wing’s abuses of human rights. It is also true that the parliament passed more than a hundred progressive laws that were blocked by the right. But all these examples were proof more of the imperviousness of the Islamic regime to reform than evidence of the resilience of the reformist-led legislature. The news of the death of political reform in the wake of the popular boycott of elections to city and village councils last spring turned out to have not been exaggerated. That event portended the present public indifference to the reformists’ unlikely rebellion. It also foreshadows the coming boycott of the February 20 parliamentary elections (and almost certainly of next year’s presidential election) by about 80 percent of the electorate. The right wing doesn’t care about the demise of democratic politics in the Islamic republic. It is well aware that it is swimming against a universal tide of democratization, but too much is at stake at this juncture for it to worry about international perceptions. The game’s domestic costs have surpassed its benefits abroad. By barring the bulk of reformist contenders from standing for office (including all but five MPs of the present reformist majority in Parliament), the Guardian Council and the right has transformed the Islamic Republic into an Islamic Caliphate, with an appointed Shura, or consultative council, in place of an elected Parliament. The democratic politics and perestroika advanced during the Tehran Spring of 1997-1999 proved intolerable to the old revolutionary power elite. The latter’s two decades of secrecy, political oppression and economic malfeasance could not have withstood the searchlight of the reformist press. Revolutionary holy cows such as the “second revolution” (meaning the taking of hostages at the US Embassy in November 1979) and the “holy defense” (meaning the ghastly eight-year war against Iraq) could not be dismantled in the public arena. The right wing’s self-serving interpretation of Islamic law and its ideological foreign policy could not withstand too many jabs. And hence, years of sabotage of piecemeal reformist advances by the right had to lead to a final counterattack: the reformists had to be buried once and for all. However, winning the battle may prove a pyrrhic victory for the theocrats. They may have just pushed the legitimacy crisis of the Islamic Republic to dangerous depths. What populist regime can rely on 10-12 percent of popular support for very long? The right still has plenty of brute force, but a bayonet makes for a notoriously uncomfortable seat. Nor are these dark days devoid of blessings for reformists. The moderate reform politicians who promised to resolve the election crisis through lobbying and negotiations were discredited. The mass resignations of MPs and government officials will have been seen as an impressive riposte. Optimists hope that this conspicuous turning away from the system will galvanize the dormant support for the reform movement and make for its resurrection. The only absolute loser of the day is Mohammad Khatami, whose pusillanimous presidency was crowned by dereliction of duty in the dark hours of the nation. He will secure the distinction of being the most cowardly leader in Iran’s long history. dailystar.com.lb JMO lurqer