Hard-Line Desperation in Iran

The contest for power between Iran’s entrenched hard-liners and its reform-minded moderates has burst fully into the open and set the stage for possible conflict. This week, three conservative newspapers published a letter sent to President Mohammed Khatami by Revolutionary Guard commanders on July 12, at the height of student protests in Tehran. It warned that “our patience is now at an end” with “this trial run of democracy, which has turned into anarchy.” The hint of intervention by the radical guards, even of a possible coup, was unmistakable. A reminder from some Khatami supporters that the late revered Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had barred the military from meddling in politics seems unlikely to be much of a deterrent.

Khatami has no control over the military. That power is held by the supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. But the president does control the Culture and Islamic Guidance Ministry, which has accused the newspapers that published the guard commanders’ “top secret” letter of violating security. Khatami’s enemies will probably see that response for what it is, a gesture that says more about the president’s weakness than his strength.

Khatami was elected two years ago by an astonishing 70% of the voters on a pledge to ease the harsh and often petty restrictions imposed on civil life by the Islamic clerics who have ruled Iran for two decades. But with parliament and other key arms of government firmly in conservative hands he has been able to achieve few reforms. Frustration, especially among the urban young who provided much of Khatami’s support, has grown. But the hard-liners’ determination to cling to power is undiminished. The guard commanders’ claim that Khatami is failing to abide by his “Islamic and nationalistic duty” is a warning of how far they are prepared to go to maintain control.

The immediate dispute may be finessed, but the underlying tensions and opposing views of Iran’s future will persist. The nearly 60% of Iranians who have no memory of life under the deposed shah are moved less by tired revolutionary slogans than by the shortage of jobs and archaically restrictive social rules. Khatami’s election with its promise of modest change offered a potential safety valve for releasing simmering discontent. In refusing to tolerate any real reforms the hard-liners could be inviting an explosion.