Khatami revives Iran's ailing reformist camp

AP – The battered reformist movement was energized with hopes of a political comeback Monday after their most powerful advocate, Mohammad Khatami, entered the race for president, a match up one liberal Web site predicted would be "an Armageddon between reformists and hardliners."

Khatami, who was president from 1997-2005 and previously expressed reluctance to run again, is seen by many reformists as their white knight, the only candidate with a real chance of beating hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Supporters see the cleric, whose calls for better ties with the West provides a stark contrast to Ahmadinejad's tough rhetoric, as warming U.S.-Iranian ties, even opening a dialogue with Barack Obama.

But Khatami, who announced his candidacy Sunday, faces a tough campaign. Reformists are divided, and the ruling religious establishment backs the current president.

Ahmadinejad is believed to be vulnerable in the June elections because of public anger over issues including fuel shortages, inflation and his confrontational stances toward the West. But few saw any candidate with the stature to defeat him.

A match-up between him and Khatami, however, transforms the race into a real competition. One reformist Web site, Asr-e Iran, said Khatami's entrance could "polarize" the campaign and turn it into "an Armageddon between reformists and hard-liners."

Supporters believe the charismatic Khatami can turn around the disillusionment that has dragged down the movement for years. In recent years, many pro-reform voters have stayed away from the polls because of hard-liners' powers to bar their candidates from running.

In their heyday in the late 1990s, reformists swept to power, seizing the presidency and parliament. They promised better relations with the West and the easing of the Islamic republic's tight social and political restrictions, and the young and women turned out in droves to hand them electoral landslides.

But even before Khatami's two terms ended, the movement was largely crushed by ruling hard-line clerics, who stand above elected posts like the presidency and parliament. Reformists were able to loosen some strictures on women's dress, but hard-liners thwarted deeper political change.

Clerical bodies controlled by hard-liners have the power under Iranian law to throw out laws passed by parliament and bar election candidates seen as not suitable for the country's Islamic revolution.

Those powers later cost reformists control of parliament after many of their lawmakers were barred from running for re-election. Ahmadinejad came to power in 2005, when term limits removed Khatami from the race. The law allows Khatami to run again, and he is considered too prominent for clerical bodies to bar his candidature.

"Khatami is a famous figure. All the people know him, and they know about the results of Ahmadinejad's administration," said one of Khatami's close allies, Mostafa Tajzadeh, suggesting reasons the former president will win.

Some supporters see Khatami as more likely to respond to the new American president's attempts to repair the bitter U.S.-Iran rivalry. Obama has said he wants to open a dialogue with Iran over its controversial nuclear program and other disputes.

"These two are able to make better relations. Both of them are men of dialogue," said Shahnaz Mahboubi, a 32-year-old nurse in Tehran.

Younis Shojai, a retired government worker, said he would vote for Khatami. "He may be our last chance to end 30 years of hostility between Iran and the United States. Both sides should forget the past to achieve that."

Ahmadinejad's press adviser confirmed last week that the hard-line president will seek re-election, although Ahmadinejad has not made a formal announcement.

He has faced criticism even from many conservatives over his handling of the economy and his harsh anti-Israeli and anti-U.S. rhetoric, which even some former allies say have worsened Iran's isolation. And he may face a challenge from within the conservative movement, possibly by powerful politician Ali Larijani.

But Ahmadinejad has support from hard-liners and, most importantly, from Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has ultimate political authority. Khamenei has praised the president for standing up to the West and restoring "Islamic values" in Iran, and urged him to run for re-election.

Moreover, Ahmadinejad has populist appeal. His government has handed out millions in direct support to the poor, despite criticism that the spending has undermined the economy.

Khatami has a patrician style in his clean, well-pressed clerical robes and a warm, smiling demeanor, but some see him as part of a distant elite. Ahmadinejad has a more down to earth, man-of-the-people look. Often wearing informal windbreakers, Ahmadinejad makes frequent tours of the provinces to keep in touch with the public. And while seen as fearsome in the West, Ahmadinejad delivers even his toughest rhetoric with a soft, smiling manner.

Conservative political analyst Emad Afrough said Khatami's candidacy transforms the race, but will also energize hard-liners. "It will motivate many people to come to the polls, while also making his opponents more active," he said.

The pro-hard-line newspaper Keyhan said a Khatami victory was far from assured, pointing to doubts over his popular support.

Also, this is no longer the Iran of the 1990s, when the young were charged up with optimism for reform. Now many criticize Khatami, saying he was too weak and failed to stand up to hard-liners while president.

Reza Shokri, once a pro-reform student in early 2000s, said he has little hope in Khatami now, "since he easily pulled back from his positions on improving freedoms during his time in office, when he had millions of votes."

Another former supporter to Khatami, Borzou Razeqi, said, "Khatami once said a president has no power in Iran. I don't understand why he decided to run for a useless position again."

The reformist vote could be divided among several candidates. Moderate cleric Mehdi Karrubi, 71, has said he will run, though he is considered a long shot. Also reported to be preparing to run is Mir Hossein Mousavi, a former hard-liner turned reformist.

A close Khatami ally, Mohammad Ali Abtahi, wrote in his personal Web site that a Khatami victory should "not be very hard — young people, who are thinking about a better future, would guarantee victory."

But he warned that if reformists fail to unify and miss the opportunty, "they will have no answer before history and Iran's future."

Finally, Reformist Mohammad Khatami declares bid for Iran presidency!!!

Former President Mohammad Khatami, who pushed for détente with the West when in office from 1997 to 2005, said Sunday that he would run in Iran's presidential election in June.

"I strongly announce my candidacy in the elections," Khatami told reporters after he held talks with an association of moderate clerics.

"I never had doubt. Is it possible to remain indifferent toward the revolution's fate and shy away from running in the elections?" he asked.

"I consider this as a right to run ... This candidacy doesn't deprive others and the path is open. What should be stressed is that the elections must be held freely."

Khatami, 65, was president of Iran between 1997 and 2005.

He was succeeded by President Ahmadinejad, a hardliner who is set to stand again and has reportedly received the blessing of Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Khatami said it was important "to think about the fate of the nation and its long-time desire to be proud, free and to progress and reach justice."

"I hope I can take steps to remove the people's problems and also enhance their position in the world."

The announcement set up a choice for voters between Khatami and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose first four-year term has seen a sharp deterioration in ties with the West as tensions over Iran's nuclear work have mounted.

The election is being keenly watched abroad because President Barack Obama has offered a new U.S. approach to engage Iran, the world's fourth-largest oil producer, saying he would extend a hand of peace if Tehran would "unclench its fist."

Some analysts say Washington may wait until the June result before spelling out any offer in detail. Iran, meanwhile, has set tough conditions for opening any dialogue, a move seen as a bid to buy time in part because of the election.

The foes have not had diplomatic ties since shortly after Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution.

The vote will not determine policy in the Islamic Republic, whose supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has the final say. But the president can influence how Iran acts as Khamenei tends to look for consensus among the political elite, analysts say.

"People feel the need for change because of Ahmadinejad's foreign policy and economic policies," said Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a vice president under Khatami and a close political ally. "Therefore we think people will vote for Khatami, for change. With Khatami running, the election will be polarized."

Ahmadinejad has faced mounting criticism over his economic management and surging inflation, which climbed to almost 30 percent last year. Reformists, in particular, say his fiery foreign policy speeches have further isolated Iran.

The West accuses Iran of seeking to build nuclear weapons, a charge that Tehran denies, insisting that its aim is to generate electricity. But Iran's failure to convince world powers about its intentions has led to three rounds of United Nations sanctions.

Khatami worked for détente abroad and for political and social change at home while president. But hard-liners in charge of major levers of power in the Islamic Republic blocked many of his reforms, costing Khatami some key supporters.

Ahmadinejad, who an aide said in January would run again, came to office pledging a fairer distribution of Iran's oil wealth and a return to Islamic revolutionary values.

BBC Profile: Mohammad Khatami

Iran's Islamic Revolution at 30

By Daniel Brumberg

I...do not accept Islamic human rights. If we accept that the Muslims can write an Islamic human rights declaration...from now on, we will see Buddhist human rights declarations...Jewish human rights declarations and so on and so forth...And if the standards are abolished... the weaker people...will be the ones who will suffer.
-- Shirin Ebadi, Iranian Human Rights Activist and Nobel Laureate

As the 30th anniversary of Iran's Islamic Revolution approaches, it is refreshing to hear Shirin Ebadi declare that she does "not accept Islamic human rights." The problem is not merely that a cultural or religious definition of human rights can easily turn into a prescription for autocracy. The more fundamental problem is who gets to wield the ax of cultural interpretation? Mrs. Ebadi knows the answer: those who are in power, those who control the state. That is why "the weaker people" suffer. They suffer the misfortune of having their rights usurped the moment a class of religious leaders reserves for itself the right to say what it means to be a Muslim, Jew, Christian or Buddhist.

But what if that right is won through election? Ebadi knows the answer to this question as well: "The Islamic Revolution came to power with the vote of the people," she notes. But "a government that has won on the basis of the vote of the majority cannot do as it pleases. (It)...does not have the right to deprive women...of their basic rights."

Many Iranians would agree with this proposition, including Iran's former president, Mohammed Khatami. As I wrote in Reinventing Khomeini: The Struggle for Reform in Iran, Khatami and his colleagues in the reform movement constituted a key wing of the Islamic Republic's original ruling family. These Islamic Leftists borrowed from Europe's revolutionary ideologies to argue for a notion of democracy that was hostile to all notions of pluralism. But after being persecuted by the very state they had helped to create, they began to rethink their original notion of democracy--as well as Islam.

Khatami's successor, President Ahmadinejad, embraced the populist myth of a unified, "people" a way to repress advocates of freedom, starting with Khatami's own allies. But such repression - accompanied by massive economic incompetence -- has further alienated Iran's youth.

How much disillusionment can a post-revolutionary state endure? A lot. However estranged, most Iranians would probably agree with Ebadi, who argues that political reform can only come through--rather than against--the institutions and ideologies of the Islamic Republic. The revolution is thirty years young. No savior can substitute for the long, hard struggle to redefine Iran's multi-faceted revolutionary heritage.

Khatami, who will probably run in Iran's June presidential election, knows that his followers (former and present) are not looking for a hero. Yet he must find a way to inspire them while at the same time defining a realistic political project that will entail difficult compromises. This is a formidable challenge, to say the least.