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Iran's Young Turn Their Backs on the Revolution

February 12, 2004
Independent
Angus McDowall

Grey-robed and bearded, the elderly cleric paused at the exit of the plane and the crowd surged forward in ecstasy. They did not realise it, but the millions of Iranians who flooded the streets of Tehran and thronged the airport to greet the returning exile, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, were part of a political earthquake that would eventually bring down the most powerful man on earth and shake the world for the next quarter-century.

The revolutionary fervour that gripped Iran in 1979 stunned the world. The CIA spooks and well-dressed foreign businessmen who had haunted Iran's marbled corridors of power for decades were gone. In their place were a motley but triumphant crew of mullahs, thinkers and dissidents.

That November, students besieged the "nest of spies" as they called the American Embassy in Tehran and took dozens of US citizens hostage. President Jimmy Carter ordered a daring rescue operation that humiliatingly failed when two helicopters crashed into the desert floor before even reaching the capital.

He was gone within a year and his successor, President Ronald Reagan, allegedly forged a back-door deal to release the hostages on the day of his inauguration, more than 400 days after they were captured. In Lebanon, the long-running civil war became a new battle front for the Islamic Revolution as Iranian-backed Shia groups made suicide bombing an art form and drove the American military presence out of the country.

The new Islamic Republic prided itself on being a democracy forged in revolution, but freedom of speech and human rights quickly dropped from the agenda amid bloody purges and a social crackdown. As power was passed among the diverse factions of the new revolutionary government, the hanging judge, Sadeq Khalkhali, became the new face of state fear as he gleefully condemned the enemies of his revolution. Royalists and courtiers were strung up in their thousands, "like starlings on a wire", alongside revolutionaries who had backed the wrong ideological horse.

A terrorist campaign gripped the nation as the leftist Mujahedin-e Khalq Organisation bombed and slaughter- ed many of the new Islamic Republic's leading political lights and alienated many of its then numerous supporters. On the streets, piety became the law as conservative dress codes and social relations were rigidly enforced. University students with long hair were forcibly shaved and denounced by revolutionary committees.

Twenty-five years later, the revolution is running out of steam. After a decade of war and a decade of economic decline, Iranians are tired. Yesterday, 100,000 people gathered underneath the Azadi monument in western Tehran to celebrate the anniversary.

But their avowed support for the conservative rulers of Iran is in stark contrast to many of their fellow Iranians, who believe they have again seen the glimmer of democratic hope snuffed out before their eyes.

In 1997, as millions voted for the reformist President Seyyid Mohammed Khatami, a new wave of euphoria swept Iran. It seemed violence could be banished from politics and the voice of the people ring in government again. But in the years since, that turned to disillusionment as change was blocked by an entrenched hard core of unelected conservatives.

Now the reformist movement appears to be dying fast, threatening the creeping liberalisation it struggled to promote. Thousands of reformist candidates have been barred from running in next week's Majlis elections, in what has been described as a parliamentary coup d'état.

Yesterday, President Khatami warned that the Islamic Republic must follow the path of reform or risk being taken over by extremists, who he said resembled the Taliban in Afghanistan. "They oppose freedom and democracy in the name of religion. Their model is a detestable and violent one," he told the mainly conservative crowd during the anniversary rally. But although most Iranians still support the social and political changes at the heart of the reformist agenda, the movement is on the back foot. The conservatives are expected to take back the Majlis after next week's elections, and to seize the presidency in mid-2005. But as another period of conservative rule beckons, the legitimacy of the Islamic Republic has never seemed weaker.

Voter turnout at last year's municipal elections fell below 20 per cent in large cities such as Tehran, a staggeringly small figure in a country where polling booths have drawn more than half of the population for almost every election since the revolution. The conservatives had wanted a show of strength at the anniversary celebrations. But yesterday's crowds were a shadow of those who once thronged here. The fire has gone out of Iran's revolutionary spirit.

A black-bearded conservative in dark glasses said the crowd this year was bigger than before. "Anybody with eyes can see this is the largest demonstration ever," he said, as curious boys nearby talked about Arsenal and Manchester United. Another man said the people had made the revolution and won the war and would turn out for the election to prove the Islamic Republic's strength. But the mood was more countryside carnival than revolutionary rally.

Fundamentally, the Islamic Republic today is very different to when millions took to the streets for the return of Ayatollah Khomeini from exile in early 1979. Then, less than half the population was literate and more than 60 per cent was rural. Now the population has doubled and the majority are educated city-dwellers. Most are barely adults. The new generation is eager for change, but has shunned the political activism of its forebears.

Apart from occasional demonstrations, attended by a few thousand, there is little sign the young are interested in politics. Instead, the reformist generation is pushing back the boundaries of social acceptability, often taking its cue from the West. Rock music, fast cars, parties and relationships define middle-class Iranians more than religion or revolution.

Falling mosque attendance also suggests that far from inculcating Iranians with religious zeal, the revolution has dampened Iranian enthusiasm. An eminent sociologist and reformist commentator who did not want to be named said: "Before the revolution, there was a strong religious culture, otherwise the revolution would not have been religious. The interesting point is that the present generation does not care who rules, but how."

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=490443

Supreme Stupidity

February 12, 2004
Daily News (Taranaki, N.Z.)
Gwynne Dyer

Just six days before tonight's 25th anniversary of the Iranian Revolution, a hopeful door to the future clanged shut.

Democratic reformers, who won control of the Iranian parliament in 2001, but found their legislation blocked by the unelected Guardian Council, have decided to boycott the election on February 20.

Democracy will still come to Iran in the end, no doubt, but now it will come in the streets.

The only question is whether it will be a non-violent revolution, like Berlin in 1989, or a re-run of Iran's own bloody revolution in 1979.

The straw that broke the camel's back was a brazen attempt by religious conservatives to regain control of parliament by banning 3000 reform candidates, including more than 80 sitting members of parliament (out of 290), from running in this election.

Iran's bizarre two-headed constitution allows for an elected parliament and president alongside an unelected but all-powerful Supreme Leader, currently Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and a Guardian Council appointed by the religious leader that can veto all parliamentary legislation and vet all political candidates, so it was technically legal.

It was also supremely stupid.

Iran's elected president, Mohammed Khatami, urged patience on his reformist supporters and appealed to the Supreme Leader to reverse the Guardian Council's decree.

Fearing his appointees had overplayed their hand, Khamenei suggested a compromise: the intel-ligence ministry would certify 600 prominent reformers as loyal to the Islamic state and they would be allowed to run.

The Guardian Council replied by approving only 51 of the 600 and, at that point, the democrats threw their hands in.

At least 127 MPs have already resigned, and the main opposition parties have declared a boycott of the forthcoming election.

The election will probably go ahead anyway, returning a huge conservative majority on a drastically shrunken turnout, but the important thing is that the democratic opposition has finally given up on politics.

In one form or another, direct action is what will now determine the outcome of the struggle between Islamic conservatives and democratic reformers in Iran.

It has only taken this long because of the pacifying - and stalling - role played by Mohammed Khatami, who was reluctantly persuaded to run for the presidency in 1997 by the reformers.

An Islamic cleric himself, though far more open-minded than the men around Khamenei, he agreed to run mainly to head off a direct clash between the bearded old men who rule Iran and the impatient young men and women who cannot stand them.

In office, Khatami moved slowly, avoiding direct confrontations with the religious authorities, but his enthusiastic supporters forgave him because the conservatives still controlled the parliament.

He briefly tried to play hard-ball in 2002, threatening to resign if the Guardian Council vetoed two parliamentary bills to stop the arbitrary vetting of political candidates and to end political trials. The Guardian Council vetoed them anyway, and Khatami didn't resign.

Neither did he condemn the conservatives when they used their constitutional position to shut down pro-democratic media. He even stayed silent when the police (who, like the army and the state-owned media, are under conservative control) helped fanatical vigilantes to beat protesting students last June.

Eventually, the conservatives were so emboldened that they overplayed their hand. Now the political struggle moves to the streets.

Khatami will stay in power for one more year, but he is a burnt-out case whose former supporters are coming to see him as a mere apologist of the regime. Among the massive cohort of disillusioned youth (Iran's population has doubled to 70 million in the past 25 years), the alienation from the whole idea of the "Islamic" republic is spectacular.

If they are middle-class, they are virtual citizens of a quite different world known to them through satellite TV, videos and constant contact with the huge Iranian diaspora that regularly travels back and forth between Iran and its new homes in Europe, the Americas, Australia and New Zealand - a world in which people like Khamenei and Khatami seem like complete anachronisms.

When something does finally bring them out on the street again in a big way, it will probably be the end-game.

Fanatics like Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, the regime's most prominent ideologue, vow to preserve the Islamic republic "even at the price of a million martyrs", but it is also possible that the whole rotten structure of the theocratic system might collapse at the first hard push.

Nobody knows - but it is clear that the patient, political phase of the struggle for Iran's future is over.

http://iranvajahan.net/cgi-bin/news.pl?l=en&y=2004&m=02&d=12&a=2

Iran's Long, Lost Revolution

February 12, 2004
Australian Financial Review
Andrew Burke

It's 25 years since the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran. But there are many who don't have much to celebrate, as Andrew Burke reports from Tehran.

Acouple of hours after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini flew into Tehran on February 1, 1979, he addressed 250,000 rapturous supporters at the sprawling Behesht-e Zhara martyrs' cemetery south of the capital. The 78-year-old, who had been in exile since being expelled by Mohammad Reza Shah in 1964, was his usual earnest, belligerent self. He had a vision of a new Iran, he told the assembled masses, and in it the good Muslims who populated the country would no longer be ruled by foreign-backed shahs and their lackeys. No, Khomeini had a different idea: "From now on it is I who will name the government."

Khomeini was hailed as a liberating hero. But despite festivities yesterday to mark the 25th anniversary of the foundation of the world's first Islamic republic, few people are in the mood for celebration

Today, Iran is a very different place. Khomeini has been dead nearly 15 years, but his legacy, or spectre, as some would prefer to describe it, can still be seen in almost every facet of life.

There are the overt symbols, such as his bearded face staring down from walls and billboards across the country, or the fact that women are still forced to wear hejab, whatever their religious belief. There are also more subtle but no less significant leftovers. The conservative Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Khomeini's hand-picked successor as Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution; volunteer militias such as Sepah and the Basijis, charged with defending the revolution; and, of course, the 12-man Guardian Council, which has the power to veto any bill passed by the parliament, which is known as the Majlis.

In spite of these often oppressive legacies, the Islamic Revolution has lost its way. After the Khomeinists ruthlessly disposed of their political rivals and co-revolutionaries in the power vacuum left by the Shah and the long war with Iraq was finally ended, belief in theocratic rule has steadily faded away.

"Do I think the clergymen should go? Certainly," says Ahmad, a software engineer from Shiraz who, like everyone approached, preferred not to be named in full for fear of retribution from hardline elements in Iranian society.

"Iran has had 25 years of going nowhere. We need to join up with the rest of the world. In the system we have we cannot do this. It is not working."

Mohsen, a young soldier doing a relatively easy two-year military service by standing around with a rifle outside one of the Shah's old palaces in Tehran, brazenly suggests that the government is "no good".

"We should not be ruled by the mullahs religion should be separate to politics," he says.

"The mullahs say `no' to everything and say it is against Islam. They say `no' to things that have nothing to do with religion this is just an excuse for them to stay in power."

The sentiments of taxi driver Ali-Reza reflect a common belief in Iran that those running the country today are as bad, if not worse, than the autocratic regime of the Shah. "Before, the Shah wore the crown; now it is these mullahs," he says.

"Those rags on their heads are there to hide the gold."

It is no small irony that as the Islamic republic marks what should be a glorious anniversary, Iran is lurching into probably its greatest political crisis since Khomeini's return.

In Tehran, government has, in effect, ceased to function. The long-simmering battle between the reformist-dominated Majlis and the unelected Guardian Council has finally boiled over in the run-up to parliamentary elections scheduled for February 20. The crisis was sparked when 3605 out of 8157 candidates were barred from standing. The vast majority of those black-listed were from the reform camp. At least 80 are sitting members of the Majlis, among them Mohammad Reza Khatami, the President's outspoken brother and leader of the biggest reform block, the Islamic Iran Participation Front.

However, while a significant majority of Iran's predominantly youthful public are impatient for change (the population has exploded to about 70 million since the revolution), events in Tehran have failed to stir the citizenry in the way reformist legislators would have liked.

The initial black-listing of candidates was followed by a parliamentary sit-in by dozens of members. But while the banned members called for people to take to the streets to show their support for reform, most Iranians were more interested in the local football results.

That such a lack of interest has afflicted a country normally so eager to make a political statement reflects the deep-seated cynicism with which Iranians look at their leaders. The reason for the disenchantment is simple: reformists have been unable to deliver the liberalisation they promised.

It has not been for a lack of trying. The Guardian Council, which must approve all bills passed in the Majlis, has used its veto power to reject 111 of 295 pieces of mostly progressive legislation passed in the parliament. With an overwhelming mandate for change after three landslide electoral victories but without the power to execute that change, the Majlis has lost credibility with much of the population. Many Iranians have simply given up hope that the change they seek will come by working within the existing establishment. And some believe their parliamentarians are as bad as the clerics who oppose them.

Twenty-year-old Tehran student Afshin is less than diplomatic.

"They're all f---ed in Tehran," he says. "The mullahs, the reformists, they're all the same. They just want power and money. They never do anything for the people."

For the reformers, altering this perception is key to their survival as a political force. The influential student movement, which is the source of almost all organised public protest, had until last week refused to come out in full support of the reformists. Indeed, several weeks ago it released a statement saying the student movement had been burned too often by violent repression and the inability of reformers to protect them. The statement went on to reject the very idea that elections could advance the cause of reform: "Unless elections lead to systematic and fundamental change they will only legitimise autocracy."

Further proof of the decline in support for the reformers can be seen in the way many people have simply stopped bothering to vote. Mohammad Khatami's election to the presidency in 1997 saw a vast majority of the population support the only candidate out of eight who stood for change. However, by the time he was re-elected in 2001, again with an overwhelming mandate for change, 14 million people representing almost a third of the electorate did not vote. By the local elections of 2003, abstentions had risen to a staggering 28 million.

All of this was music to the ears of conservatives. Political scientists say the conservatives can rely on about 12 per cent of support every time.

With public support for the reformers so weak, many are questioning the wisdom of the Guardian Council in banning candidates and thus giving the reformers an issue to take to the public.

With more than 2000 candidates still blocked from running despite three reviews of the "blacklist", reformers have now joined those prominent liberal newspapers which have not been shut down in openly urging would-be voters to avoid the ballot box, thus rendering the elections illegitimate in all but name. Last week 130 reformist Majlis members confirmed their resignations and said they would not participate in the election, even if they were among those who hadn't been barred from doing so. Despite threats of prosecution for their "illegal act" and being labelled as US spies by the editor of one hardline newspaper, ministers, deputy ministers and all 27 provincial governors have also resigned.

It's a high-risk strategy. The clerics can count on their 12 per cent and this might well be enough to win them a majority in the Majlis. The reformers, and a majority of the public, are counting on international pressure and a conservative desire for at least some form of democratic affirmation to force significant change to Iran's political landscape.

What form this might take, no one seems to know. Many say, at least for now, they have little appetite for Iran to experience its third revolution in 100 years the first being the Constitutional Revolution of 1906.

"What happened 25 years ago, I don't want to happen again," Hossein, a 55-year-old merchant, says. "Shooting in the streets, what does that bring us? It would be very bad for the country."

But Amin, a young man not old enough to have seen the last revolution, says: "Things will change when there is the next revolution. It might be two years, might be five years, inshAllah, but things will change for Iran."

Could the students even look to Khomeini for inspiration. In lectures made in the city of Najaf, where he was exiled, and distributed by cassette to mosques across Iran in the late 1970s, the ayatollah dismissed reform and called for, in as many words, regime change. "The Shah must go," he boomed. "It is too late for reforms. The time is ripe for action." Twenty-five years on, is the time again ripe for action? Probably not. Yet.

http://afr.com/world/index.html

Iranians Are in No Mood to Celebrate Revolution Anniversary

February 12, 2004
The Irish Times
Caitríona Palmer

With a staggering two-thirds of the country under the age of 30, the clerical leadership has plenty to worry about. And many of Iran's youth say they're fed up with social restrictions, a lack of jobs and rampant inflation.

Louyi Bijani was just 15 when he died in the Iran-Iraq war. Now, every Friday, his family makes a pilgrimage to Behesht-e Zahra, Tehran's largest cemetery, armed with buckets and rags. As his young nephews and nieces play nearby, Louyi's brother and mother gently wash the white marble headstone and scatter flower petals on his grave.

"He was a very good boy," said Louyi's mother. "He loved me the most out of all of my children."

Louyi's photograph, encased in a rickety glass cabinet above the grave, surveys the scene. He seems all of his 15 years, proudly wearing a barely visible line of fuzz above his top lip. Beneath his photo stands a vase of garish plastic flowers lovingly arranged by his mother.

Around Louyi lie over 200,000 young men, killed during Iran's horrific eight-year war against Iraq. Each grave has its own glass cabinet stuffed full of memorabilia from a short life. Yellowing photographs, ceramic figurines, a copy of the Koran, and again and again, the same bright, plastic flowers.

These are the men revered by Iran's Islamic Republic as "martyrs" to the cause. They are the linchpin of the 1979 revolution.

But such accolades from the theocracy mean little to Louyi's family. And as Iran marks 25 years since the overthrow of the Shah, they say they have few reasons to be celebrating.

"This anniversary makes no difference to us," said Ardel, Louyi's older brother. "I don't have a positive answer about the revolution because everything that they told us has been a lie, and nothing has turned out to be true."

Families like this are not supposed to be criticising the fruits of the revolution. Ardel and his two brothers work for the Revolutionary Guards and the Baseej militia, created during the revolution to cement conservative clerical authority.

"We have no money," said Louyi's mother. "No, I don't have a positive attitude towards the clergy. I have lost my four brothers and son in this war. When I go to the Martyrs' Foundation to look for help, they just shout at me."

Just across the road from the graveyard lies the Holy Shrine of Ayatollah Khomeini. Nearly 15 years following his death, construction on his mausoleum has yet to be completed, forcing pilgrims to pick their way to the entrance through cement blocks and steel cables. Inside the mausoleum children chase pennies on the shiny marble floor while the faithful press their faces against the glass wall of Khomeini's shrine in devotion and prayer. But even here, at the very heart of Iran's Islamic revolution, there is dissatisfaction.

Nestled against a wall of the mausoleum, dressed in a black chador and cradling a Koran, Fatima (35) says she rides the metro once a week to visit Khomeini's tomb.

"For me, it's like coming to my grandfather's grave," she said. "I talk to Imam Khomeini about my problems but I also complain to him about the problems caused by this government like the economy, unemployment, high prices."

"During the time of Imam Khomeini it was better. We liked the core message of the revolution, but now there are people in power who don't sympathise with the revolution and who are after their own goals. They have put aside the people who were the supporters of the revolution."

Twenty-five years on the world's only theocracy is struggling to engage an increasingly alienated population that no longer pays any heed to its official promises of prosperity and freedom.

With a staggering two-thirds of the country under the age of 30, the clerical leadership has plenty to worry about. And many of Iran's youth say they're fed up with social restrictions, a lack of jobs and rampant inflation.

In a coffee shop in affluent north Tehran, 25-year-old Reza is drinking coffee with two female friends while texting obsessively on his mobile phone.

He laughs derisively when asked whether he'll be celebrating the anniversary of the revolution. "No, we won't be participating," he shrugs. "We don't see any reason to celebrate. They haven't given us any happiness so why should they expect us to celebrate?"

Unsure of how to mollify the vast youth population, the conservative leadership recently began to ease social restrictions. Now unmarried young men and women can hold hands in public without fear of arrest, or congregate together in coffee shops and billiard halls.

But according to Reza, social freedoms are the least of their worries. "We've got so many problems that we don't have time to think," he said. "You know, from housing problems to financial problems."

"They've given us more social freedom," he said. "But it's a little too late."

Political analysts say the revolution succeeded in dumping the US-backed monarchy but failed to deliver on its promises of democracy. Perhaps Iranians feel let down because they didn't really know what they were getting into when they embraced Ayatollah Khomeini on his return to Tehran from exile.

"They didn't want the Shah but they didn't really know what they wanted," said one analyst. "They said they wanted an Islamic Republic but it was a reaction. It was not a carefully premeditated, calculated move by the people." More than two decades later, Iranians seem to be back to square one, accusing their leaders of exercising absolute rule.

"Iranians have been walking in a circle for 25 years," he said. "Twenty five years ago they wanted freedom of choice and now once again they want freedom of choice. Iranians want to live the lives they like, they want to be able to choose for themselves and decide for themselves." They may feel they don't have much freedom to choose, but this week as state television rebroadcasts footage of the revolution, many Iranians will be choosing to tune out.

http://www.ireland.com/

Reza Pahlavi Invites the West to Boycott the Islamic Republic of Iran

February 11, 2004
The Associated Press
Rezapahlavi.org

PARIS -- As the Iranian political crisis persists ten days away from its legislative elections, Reza Pahlavi, son of the late Shah of Iran, invited the West on Tuesday not to expand its relations with the theocratic rulers in Iran, in order to accelerate "the popular movement" in favor of a true democracy, 25 years after the introduction of the Islamic Republic.

"We are today at a juncture wherein we want to cripple the regime", he declared at a press conference held in Paris on Tuesday. "The Iranians will do what they have to do." "All that they hope for, is that the world today takes into account what they want - to invest in the people of Iran and cease bargaining with the mullahs", he continued. "And you will see that meaningful change would come about much faster than anyone expects."

The 43 year old Mr. Pahlavi, in exile for 25 years, made these remarks as Prince Charles of England had an hour meeting on Monday with the Iranian president Mohammad Khatami, during a visit to Iran intended to meet the survivors of the earthquake in Bam. In mid-January, the French president for his part, officially received Hassan Rohani, secretary of the Iranian Supreme Council for the national security. A visit during which Jacques Chirac wished for a "new future for the Franco-Iranian relations".

On Tuesday, the son of the late Shah of Iran asked the Western countries to clarify their position with respect to the clerical regime in Iran, which has "become a convention center for the terrorist industry". "Here's the bottom line: are you with us or against us? Whose side are you on, the people or the oppressive regime?", he asked.

The theologians in the Guardian Council, whose members are designated by Ayatollah Khamenei, disqualified more than 2400 reformist candidates, including 80 incumbent deputies, causing a political crisis since January which resulted particularly in the resignation of many reformist members of the Parliament and the critics of the Supreme Leader.

Referring to this poll, Reza Pahlavi minimized this electoral process pointing out the inherent inability of the Parliament (Majlis). "These elections are futile, because even as a member of the Parliament, one lacks the power to legislate", he stated. "Even if everyone were to participate, still the elections are meaningless."

For the elder son of the Shah, it is thus necessary to seize this moment of crisis in order to unite the Iranian expatriates "beyond the ideological and political divergences" and empower the Iranian people. Questioned on the means and methods of resistance, Mr. Pahlavi recommended "nonviolence" and "civil disobedience", while admitting that "for the demonstrations or strikes to function, it is not enough to merely have an intellectual movement". "What could amplify this movement also depends on certain external factors", he underlined before concluding: "the world could play an extremely constructive or destructive role."

http://www.rezapahlavi.org/articles/ap21104-eng.html

IRANIANS COLD TO THE 25TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC

PARIS, 11 Feb. (IPS)

The Islamic Republic marked on Wednesday the 25th anniversary of its foundation by Grand Ayatollah Roohollah Khomeini amidst general indifference in Iran and anti-regime demonstrations by the Iranian Diaspora in several American and European cities.

Contrary to the Iranian media, mostly the official and the semi-officials that hailed "the mass participation" of Iranians in the celebrations, independent journalists observed the "quasi indifference" of the public for the ceremonies, preferring to use the extended week end holiday to go to sunny and warm cities on the Persian Gulf or the popular Caspian Sea’s resorts.

"Despite streets being illuminated by colourful lanterns, crowns of flowers and gigantic posters, the majority of the Iranians remain indifferent to the festivities", Ms. Delphine Minoui, the correspondent of the French centre of the right newspaper "Le Figaro" said in a lengthy dispatch from the Iranian Capital.

"I refused to go to the ceremonies because I realise that all the promises made by this regime from the start up until today came to be a big lie", the brother of a martyr killed on the battlefront of the bloody War against Iraq told "The Irish Times" of Dublin.

In a speech pronounced on the occasion, the embattled Hojjatoleslam Mohammad Khatami warned that "if pressures on the people became insupportable, one not only has betrayed the people and the Revolution, but also provoke damages that would be difficult to compensate, if not impossible".

Repeating accusations and criticism against the West and defending the Islamic Revolution for "teaching the world about real and true democracy and freedom" as well as the action of his government, Mr. Khatami also called for "free and fair" elections.

However, he avoided touching the recent electoral crisis that had marred the commemoration of the victory of the Islamic Revolution of 1979 as well as addressing the slightest criticism to the leader-controlled Council of the Guardians for rejecting the majority of incumbent reformist lawmakers from running for the seventh Majles.

To protest the decision, more than a hundred deputies of the reformist faction of the Majles staged a sit-in and cabinet ministers threatened of mass resignation, but not only they faced apathy from the public, but were also abandoned by Mr. Khatami, now dubbed by many Iranians as "the Judah".

As A result of the stand off, the Islamic Iran Participation Front, the country’s largest political formation that is led by Dr. Mohammad Reza Khatami, the younger brother of the powerless President and one of the disqualified candidates decided not to take part in the polls.

"Badly deceived by the Islamic justice, democracy and freedom promised by Grand Ayatollah Roohollah Khomeini, the Iranians have now serious doubts about the religious-based government as well as about the compatibility of religion and democracy, as defended by President Mohammad Khatami", observed the relatively authoritative American newspaper "The Christian Science Monitor".

"Times have changed", she quoted Massoumeh, a former Moslem militant, remembering that at the time, Khomeini had succeeded in uniting all groups (opposed to the late Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi). "Even my friends of left were bewitched by the leader's words" she says, adding: For us, he embodied this model of wisdom that one was looking for a long time. I still have difficulty to explain this magic attraction that all would have for him".

Today, Massoumeh stood back. She has exchanged the black chador against a simple scarf and she enrolled, four years ago in the class of Mr. Abdolkarim Soroush, a religious intellectual, a former member of the Supreme Council for Cultural Revolution in charge of the islamisation of the universities turned one of the theoreticians the more in vogue of "post-Islamism".

Defending a "personal Islam", he now rejects in block the embodiment of the religion and dare to question the concept of velayate faqih, or the corner stone of the Iranian theocratic system based on the supreme jurisdiction incarnated by Ayatollah Ali Khameneh’i after the death of the Grand Ayatollah in 1989, she wrote.

He is not the only one, Ms. reported, adding: In the holy city of Qom as well as in Tehran, many thinkers dare to question the narrow relation between politics and the religion. "We come back from afar", she quoted Mr Hamid Reza Jalaïpour, professor of social studies in Tehran.

"Twenty-five years ago, many of us would believe that theocracy could solve all problems. But one can see that since the revolution, the number of faithful didn't increase, the mosques didn't become more popular and the State is not more efficient", Mr. Jalaipour, the publisher of several reformist dailies all shut down by the leader-controlled Judiciary says.

Many of the former radicals are now among today’s reformers. Abbas Abdi, to mention him only, one of the "mentors" of hostage taking at the American embassy Tehran in November 1979 reached fame more than a year ago by the publication of a "shock" poll that revealed that three quarters of the Iranians were in favour of the resumption of the dialogue between Iran and America. His investigation provoked the grumbles of the conservative justice that sent it behind the bars.

"This revolution allowed us to experiment the religious fundamentalism. This is an important achievement in relation to our neighbouring countries that discovers it only now", Mr. Jalaipour went on, noting that "today, the opening on the world and democracy is unavoidable in Iran".

"It is the fight of the ideological Islam against the cultural and tolerant Islam", commented Mr. Masha’llah Shamsolva’ezine a writer and journalist who, according to Ms. Minoui, "even dares to skim the word of "secularism".

"This activist of the reformist press who now heads the Association for the Defence of the Rights of Journalists knows what he talks about: He has just been again called by a tribunal to give some accounts for "spreading of untrue information". The man, who knew the jail during eighteen months says, "After this painful experience that was the Revolution, the Iranian society is reaching its maturity", Le Figaro said.

But, according to Mr. Qasem Sho’leh Sa’di, a former Member of the Majles, "from reforms as promised by Mr. Khatami, Iranians are now demanding radical changes".

ENDS 25 ANNIVERSARY 11204

http://www.iran-press-service.com/articles_2004/Feb_04/25_anniversary_11204.htm

A Kinder View of Uncle Sam
Iranians' Affinity Grows After Encounters With Troops in Iraq

By Karl Vick
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, February 12, 2004; Page A21

TEHRAN, Feb. 11 -- On Revolution Day, the Iranian equivalent of the Fourth of July, Azadi Street was again transformed from east-west artery to carnival midway. Men lined up for free yogurt. Hawkers coaxed women to finger the material of baby clothes. Children clamored for a turn throwing darts at George W. Bush.

Hossein Asadi put three darts right between the eyes of the caricature, sketched on a pair of boards mounted in a sideshow tent. He walked away with a new yellow tennis ball but no change in his feelings, which were nothing if not admiring.

"They like me to hit George Bush, so I hit George Bush," said Hossein, 15. "They say it's the Great Satan, but I say it's a great country.

"I've seen nothing bad from the Americans."

Wednesday marked 25 years since an elderly Muslim cleric with eyes the color of coal declared Iran a theocracy. But while religious figures remain firmly in charge here, sweeping aside an entire reform movement last week with the stroke of a pen, another pillar of the revolution appears shakier.

Anti-Americanism is not what it used to be in Iran.

As the United States and Iran edge warily toward possible rapprochement, the Iranian public makes no secret of its appetite for restoring relations formally severed in 1980, after militant students took over the U.S. Embassy here. In recent months, Iranians say, the appetite has grown for an unexpected reason: Iranian pilgrims returning from Iraq are spreading admiring stories of their encounters with American troops.

Thousands of Iranians have visited the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala since the war ended. Many have expressed surprise at the respectful and helpful behavior of the U.S. soldiers they met along the way.

Leila Araki, waiting in the back of a Renault sedan as her husband peddled shoes, recalled that her mother-in-law somehow lost her money on the road to Karbala. She said a U.S. soldier reached into his pocket and handed her taxi fare back to Najaf.

"This is something quite contrary to what we have been told about Americans," said Araki, 31, who was told of Americans flashing thumbs-up and saying, "Good, Iranians."

"They were really surprised. I would never be this respected and well-treated even in my country, by my countrymen."

Esmaeil Omrani told of a relative with asthma struggling to breathe in the dust of Najaf. A young American in full battle dress advised him to switch inhalants, then gave the pilgrim his own, plus an extra for the road. "Everybody liked them," Omrani said.

Hossein Amiri related a similar story from a thirsty relative given water by a U.S. soldier outside Najaf when the city was closed by a car bombing.

"Between our countries, there might be problems at the top," said Amiri, 48, a civil servant. "There is no problem at the bottom."

This unusual cultural exchange has emerged at a fortuitous time, according to analysts and ordinary Iranians. After a quarter century of mutual hostility, the U.S. and Iranian governments are working quietly to establish order both in Afghanistan and Iraq, neighboring countries that Iran considered hostile under the regimes that the United States and allied nations recently toppled.

The prospect of formal relations remains uncertain. Senior Iranian officials said they do not expect serious progress until after the U.S. presidential election and Iran's own contest for a new president in 2005.

But the soft words rising from Azadi Street carry significance. The annual gathering on Revolution Day draws Iranians who remain most fiercely devoted to the hard-line government, loyalists who routinely chant "Death to America" at Friday prayers (a refrain not heard on Wednesday). Bussed to Azadi, their numbers include volunteers of the Basiji militia who have pledged fealty to the country's supreme leader and veterans who defended the nascent Islamic republic in the 1980-88 war against Iraq.

U.S. support for Iraq in that war has been an abiding complaint in Iran, along with the CIA role in a 1953 coup that replaced a nationalist government with Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, widely seen as a U.S. puppet disrespectful of Islam.

"I was a volunteer during the war," said Amir Hossein Yazdarian, 35, who has used a wheelchair since an Iraqi grenade pierced his spine. "I was injured by the weapons of Saddam Hussein, who was supported by the Americans. So I have suffered from the Americans. But I don't see any reason why we should not have relations.

"We are a nation with an ancient civilization. America is a nation with a modern civilization. If we cooperate, good things could happen."

In the complex geometry of Iranian politics, prospects for U.S. ties may actually be enhanced by the electoral crisis still unfolding here. Since 2000, the government has been stalemated between elected reformers and conservatives who occupy the appointed positions that carry real authority here.

Last month, conservatives summarily disqualified most of the most prominent reform candidates for parliament. The move prompted a mass resignation among lawmakers, calls to boycott the Feb. 20 election and a stern warning from the reformist president to the several hundred thousand assembled on Wednesday.

"Elections are a symbol of democracy if they are performed correctly," said President Mohammad Khatami, who has reluctantly vowed to go ahead with the election. "If this is restricted, it's a threat to the nation and the system. This threat is difficult to reverse."

But analysts said a government dominated by conservatives may accelerate the move toward negotiations with Washington. Renewed U.S. relations long have been quietly regarded as the ultimate prize in domestic politics here, one that reformers and conservatives have been loathe to see the other side win credit for delivering.

As for anti-American rhetoric enshrined by the 1979 revolution, a foreign diplomat in Tehran said, "I think ultimately Iranians feel they've been fed a line."

"Whatever the cost of living there, please take me to America," said Mohammad Tehrani, a bus driver waiting to carry the faithful home. He stood beside a kiosk bearing the slogan, stenciled in English, "Down with USA."

"We have no problems with America really," insisted Hassan Diyanat, a fellow driver. "Why should we have problems?"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34513-2004Feb11.html