Iran's Khatami strikes back

http://www.theguardian.com/world/iran-blog/2013/sep/20/iran-khatami-revenge-rouhani-victory

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Even before his presidency ended in 2005, Mohammad Khatami was dismissed as ineffective by both conservative and radical critics. Conservatives mocked his expensive leather shoes and stylish clerical cloak, while radicals said he had "sold out" on promises to reform the Islamic republic: both mocked his notion of a "dialogue between civilisations".

Some Iranians in shared taxis ridiculed him as Fariba, a girl's name meaning charming but mischievous.

Later, during unrest after the 2009 disputed presidential election, Khatami was derided as irrelevant by protestors who resented his lack of support. At the same time, conservative critics attacked him as an instigator of "sedition".

And yet, Khatami never retreated to his two foundations, the International Institute for Dialogue among Cultures & Civilizations and Baran (the Foundation for Freedom, Growth and Development of Iran). His work in wider politics was often discrete but he emerged this year during June's presidential election campaign alongside another former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, to back pragmatic conservative candidate, Hassan Rouhani.

Now, Rouhani's new cabinet has many faces from the Khatami administrations of 1997 to 2005. Among them, Bizhan Namdar Zanganeh returns to head the oil ministry. Mohammad Javad Zarif, the new foreign minister, was Iran's UN ambassador in the later years of Khatami's presidency. Massoumeh Ebtekar, one of Khatami's vice presidents and the first woman to hold such office in Iran, returns as vice president responsible for the environment.

In his ups and downs since his landslide victory in the 1997 presidential election, Khatami has never wavered from two core beliefs: in the desirability and possibility of reform under the Islamic republic, and in the desirability and possibility of dialogue between Iran and outside powers including the United States.

Those beliefs, tested many times since 1997, now face their greatest tests.

Born in 1943 in Ardakan, a small slow-paced central desert city, Khatami entered parliament in 1980 as a strong supporter of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, leader of the 1979 Islamic revolution. His liberal reputation developed from his gradual relaxation of censorship as culture minister between 1983 and 1992. As a seyed in the black clerical turban marking descent from the Prophet Mohammad, he proved an inspired reformist choice to run for president in 1997, trouncing his right-wing rival by 13 million votes.

As president, Khatami's cautious approach yielded change in introducing city council elections, expanding the range of newspapers, and reopening European embassies. But more radical reformers lost faith in 1999 when Khatami stayed aloof as right-wing vigilantes attacked students with clubs and knives after they protested at the judiciary closing reformist newspapers. Again and again, radical critics said he should challenge the leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who held real power.

Many Iranians just felt battles over social freedom did nothing for day-to-day problems like unemployment. Iranian politics slipped towards the right in 2003's local elections, 2004's parliamentary elections and then Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's presidential election victory in 2005.

In 2004, while still president, Khatami published a Letter for Tomorrow that read like a swansong. The Islamic revolution, he wrote, had veered from "freedom, independence and progress" towards "mental habits and prejudices" from Iran's tyrannical, monarchical past. For Khatami, outside threats strengthened authoritarianism within the country. "The war [of 1980-88 against Iraq] and the assassinations [of Islamic officials] forced the state to impose more restrictions," he wrote. "What is amazing is that, for some people, this situation... came to be seen as the rule."

Khatami linked Iran's domestic situation to the "dialogue among civilizations" he began to call for in 1998 in response to growing influence in the United States of Samuel Huntington's notion of a "Clash of Civilisations".

In September 2000, Khatami told a UN-sponsored conference in New York on "dialogue among civilisations": "Dialogue is not easy…A belief in dialogue paves the way for vivacious hope: the hope of living in a world permeated by virtue, humility and love, and not merely by the reign of economic indices and destructive weapons."

Khatami's presidency helped create the room for the 2003 "Grand Bargain" offer to the US of comprehensive talks, simply ignored by the Bush administration, and for talks in 2003-05 with the European Union over the nuclear programme, when Iran suspended all uranium enrichment. Those involved on all sides say Iran's approach had the backing of Ayatollah Khamenei.

Khatami wanted deeply to avoid confrontation in Iran as well as internationally. In 2004, when still president, he kept his distance from a sit-in of deputies and from a parliamentary election boycott by Mosharekat, the main reformist party, after the Guardian Council disqualified more than 3,000 mainly reformist candidates. I remember Mohammad Reza Khatami, the Mosharekat general-secretary, telling me of his older brother's fear of provoking serious unrest.

Within months of Ahmadinejad's election win in 2005, Khatami warned of a "fanatical" interpretation of Islam. The blacksmith's son was adept in addressing poorer Iranians – and had a better understanding of them than Khatami did – but his fiery rhetoric and undiluted evocations of the 12th Imam quickly alienated the US, Europe and the Arab Sunni establishment.

The roots of Khatami support for Rouhani go back to a coalition that emerged in 2006 in concern over both the radicalism of Ahmadinejad and growing US pressure focused on Tehran's nuclear programme. This coalition embraced moderate reformists, nationalist intellectuals and pragmatic conservatives, and resulted from a belief that Iran faced the most serious challenge in its modern history. It was led by Khatami, Rafsanjani and Mehdi Karroubi.

Many reformists detested Rafsanjani, but Khatami made tactical decisions in line with his convictions. In the 2009 presidential election, after being urged to run by many, he backed Mir Hossein Mousavi as someone more likely to win. By then, Khatami was not alone in realizing that the reformists' emphasis on social freedom had allowed conservatives, including Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to occupy the high ground on economic issues and to rally poorer Iranians against inequalities and alleged corruption. So Mousavi fought Ahmadinejad on the latter's chosen ground of "social justice" and the economy.

In the street protests after Ahmadinejad's disputed poll victory, Khatami again appeared irrelevant. Exiled groups proclaimed the looming overthrow of the Islamic revolution; the US tightened its approach in concern for human rights; arrests removed many reformists from active politics, with presidential candidates Mousavi and Karroubi put under house arrest.

But, again, Khatami held fast to his convictions. Last year, he faced criticism for voting in parliamentary elections after some reformists backed a boycott, and radical opponents continued to accuse him of silence over human rights abuses.

But Khatami was undeterred. While criticizing what in May he called the "suffocating security atmosphere" in Iran, he continued to work for unity with pragmatic conservatives like Rafsanjani in the run-up to the 2013 presidential election. Radical opponents and western "experts" said the poll would be won by a fundamentalist.

Now, Khatami is able to claim Rouhani's election win has reopened the door for incremental change. "We preferred for the reformist discourse to win even if reformists themselves were not the victors," he said. "Real reformism is compatible with rational moderation. The slogan of moderation [that is, Rouhani's slogan] is not outside the sphere of reformism. Today is the best opportunity for us to clean our hearts from grudges, for [political] prisoners to be released, for the house arrests to come to an end and for us all to stand together and work for our country in a spirit of brotherhood."

With the 15th anniversary of the original idea of "Dialogue among Civilizations" approaching, there are also suggestions of a new public role.

The parliamentary deputy, Elaheh Kulai, told Etemad that Rouhani should make Khatami a roving good-will ambassador to help "overcome the serious threats against our country and the region". Kulai cited Syria and Saudi Arabia as urgent diplomatic priorities, and likewise Sadegh Kharrazi, former UN and Paris ambassador, has suggested Khatami might take an initiative over Syria.

Time will tell how far, and in what way, the Rouhani government can and will go in the direction Khatami wants, at home and abroad.

Already, the conditions of house arrests for Mousavi and Karroubi, both in their 70s and with medical complaints, have eased. Karroubi's son, Mohammad Taghi, has said Ayatollah Khamenei has agreed their case will be decided by the Supreme National Security Council, where Rouhani recently appointed Ali Shamkhani, defence minister under Khatami, to replace Saeed Jalili, the defeated fundamentalist presidential candidate.

Ayatollah Khamenei has made clear "flexibility" in talks with the US are possible in what he compared to a wrestling match.

But one reform-minded analyst in Tehran told me that the US should not make the mistake of thinking Rouhani and his team, with or without Khatami's backing, will be a pushover.

"Yes, this will be a kinder, friendlier administration," he said, "but it will still have teeth."

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