Iran comes clean
The new openness is a tribute to Mr Khatami's strategy in
fighting Iran's war for reform. It may indeed mark the turning-point
The Economist
January 9, 1999
THE admission this week by Iran's secret police that its own agents
were implicated in the recent murder of liberal dissidents is a victory
for those Iranians, led by President Muhammad Khatami, who have been fighting
to turn Iran into a more decent and open place. Beyond that, Mr Khatami
has managed, by his manner of winning, to carry many of his top ideological
opponents with him. If he has indeed convinced them that a more honest
society that respects the rule of law is the only way to ensure the survival
of the Islamic republic, he will have won a war, not just a battle.
Mr Khatami was elected in May 1997 by over 70% of the voters in a 90%
turnout on his promise to make Iran freer, more democratic and more law-abiding.
To a considerable extent, he has kept his first promise. People can breathe
freer. They can debate publicly subjects that were formerly taboo. The
press has more licence. The ban on satellite television is less painfully
applied. But there is no certainty that any of these new freedoms will
last. There have been no institutional changes. The victories are unofficial,
insecure and liable to reversal at any time. The country's ideological
dinosaurs, appalled by every new manifestation of openness, have repeatedly
fought back from a position of formidable strength.
Mr Khatami has had to face the limitations of presidential authority
in Iran. The army, the police, the judiciary and foreign policy are all
in the control of the country's spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Although the ayatollah is not the arch-conservative he is often made out
to be, the anti- reform lobby has certainly used him as its all-powerful
figurehead. When the president pushed for crucial changes in foreign affairs
or the judicial system-whether to soften the anti-Americanism that distorts
Iranian foreign policy or to clean up the country's arbitrary ways of handing
out justice-he was humiliatingly squashed by the dinosaurs. Recently,
Iranians have had ever more reason to feel insecure. In a scary backlash
to reform, political violence has shaken the country. Islamist vigilantes,
claiming to be guardians of the revolution, have grown more aggressive,
beating up people they disagree with, attacking cinemas showing "unIslamic"
films, even attacking clerics whose sermons they do not like. Although
Mr Khatami called mildly for an end to violence, nothing much was done
about it.
Then, at the end of November, a secular nationalist politician, Darius
Forouhar, and his wife were stabbed to death in their home in Tehran. Several
reform-minded people had disappeared, perhaps kidnapped. A couple of weeks
later, two liberal intellectuals who had been trying to form a writers'
association, Muhammad Mokhtari and Muhammad Pouyandeh, were found murdered.
These crimes galvanised the country: there was an outcry, both in the media
and among the public at large, to catch the criminals.
The president set up a fact-finding task-force, on which sat the ministers
of intelligence and the interior. Rumours abounded: "foreign networks"
(ie, America and Israel) were blamed, so was the People's Mujahideen, the
armed opposition based in Iraq which has claimed some responsibility for
the car- bomb that this week injured Ali Razini, the head of the Tehran
judiciary. Everybody expected the customary cover-up. But, then, under
public pressure, the intelligence ministry came clean. It announced on
January 5th that it had arrested a number of its own officials for taking
part in "the hateful murders". This is the first time since the
revolution, perhaps ever, that the government has admitted that its own
men have been involved in such crimes.
Softly, softly does it
Mr Khatami immediately sent a message to the intelligence ministry praising
its honesty: its admission, he said, would boost "our main asset",
public trust. This is entirely in line with his way of doing things. The
president has been sharply criticised for going too slow, being too gentle
in his admonitions, too quick to give way. The current turn of events may
justify his strategy. Had he antagonised his opponents in the battle, Ayatollah
Khamenei might not have used his immense influence to press for the truth,
and the intelligence ministry might have hung on to its grisly secrets.
Even if Mr Khatami had triumphed, the counter-attack, given the distribution
of power in Tehran, would have come soon, and inevitably. As it is,
Iran is experiencing a rare moment of open unity. Of course, things could
still go terribly wrong. But the chances of Iran becoming a country with
which the world will gladly do business have suddenly blossomed.
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