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Political
Paralysis:
Iran's 2001 Election and the Future of Reform
Contents
The 2001 Presidential Election
Institutional Gridlock
The Key Players
The Fundamental Debate
Implications for U.S.-Iran Relations
Specialists
Further Reading
The Asia Society is grateful to the Open Society
Institute for providing the support to make this Asian Update possible.
The 2001 Presidential Election
On June 8, Iran will hold its eighth presidential election. Although reformist President
Mohammad Khatami is expected to win a second term, the uncertainty and confusion that
have marred this election reflect a growing political stalemate in Tehran that threatens
not only the future of reform but perhaps the future of the Islamic Republic itself.
This year's presidential election differs vastly from the one in 1997. First, it is far
more muddled. The 1997 election-despite Khatami's unexpected victory-offered Iranian
voters a clear picture of the competition well before Election Day. Although the Guardian
Council approved the four presidential candidates only a month before the election, those
candidates had declared their intent to run long before their eligibility was announced.
As a result, their different platforms and political affiliations became widely known, and
campaigning was an important part of the political atmosphere. This year, in contrast,
Khatami did not announce his intent to run until two days before the registration deadline,
and there was much speculation about the list of candidates before the Guardian Council
announced the slate of approved candidates three weeks before Election Day. Unlike in the
1997 election, campaign platforms have been relegated to the back seat, while more basic
issues, such as Khatami's decision to run and the future of political reform, have become the mainstays of daily political discourse.
This year's presidential race is also u
nlikely to generate the same level of excitement about political reform as the last one did.
In the 1997 election, the conservative speaker of the parliament, Ali Akbar Nateq-Nouri, who
ran on a platform emphasizing economic issues, was expected to win handily. The support he
had garnered from the state-controlled media and key political players (including the supreme
religious leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei), along with the nationwide organization of the
political forces supporting his candidacy, was deemed too powerful to overcome. In addition,
the defeat of a favored candidate simply could not be imagined in a "regime" perceived as
united at its core. Nevertheless, many voters believed that Khatami-whose platform called
for political reform, tolerance, the rule of law, and the creation of a civil society-was
the first viable opposition candidate in the history of the Islamic Republic. As such, in
the weeks before the election, as it became apparent that every vote would count, excitement
replaced the apathy that had plagued past presidential elections. On Election Day, nearly
88 percent of eligible voters went to the polls, and Khatami won nearly 70 percent of those
votes.
This massive and enthusiastic voter turnout helped launch not only a very popular presidency
but also a dynamic reform movement that has sought to openly engage civil society while
rejecting the Islamic state's rigid and intrusive interpretation of religion. The most
visible result of this reform movement was a vibrant and ever-expanding press, which
contributed to reformist victories in the city and village council elections of 1999
and the parliamentary elections of 2000.
Most people expected that the reformists,
having won control of both executive and legislative branches, could now pursue their goals
of political competition and freedom with greater ease. But as it turned out, popular
rejection did not weaken the will of anti-reform forces but in fact spurred them to redouble
their efforts, particularly after their decisive loss in the 2000 parliamentary elections.
Before the newly elected parliament took over, for instance, they used their clout in the
outgoing parliament to pass a draconian law that allowed courts to force news reporters to
reveal their sources and barred anyone involved in "anti-establishment" activities from
holding a position in the press. They also raised the voting age from 15 to 16 in an attempt
to undercut the reformists' support among the youth. Most important, they have used a variety
of non-elected institutions-the judiciary, sections of the Revolutionary Guards, the
state-controlled radio and television, and the Guardian Council-to relentlessly block
proposals that would facilitate political competition and open discourse. They have
undermined reformist legislation, shut down newspapers, forced Khatami's key ministers
out of office, sent militia forces to disrupt student rallies and meetings, and arrested
reformist journalists and government officials, as well as active members of civil society.
And they have done all this with the open, albeit itinerant, support of both Ayatollah
Khamenei and former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.
This strategy-an "attack from below" coupled with "consent from above"-has
placed Khatami in a difficult and delicate position. Every time a newspaper has been closed,
a political rally or meeting disrupted, or an ally arrested on fabricated charges, Khatami's
inability to condemn or counter the act (beyond expressing his regret) has exposed his limited
powers within the political system. Unwilling to directly confront his opposition, Khatami has
called for patience and slow reform-an approach that has placed him at odds with some of his
own supporters. These so-called radical reformists have pleaded for a more unequivocal stance
and greater reliance on the "people power" that put Khatami in office. But concerned that such
an approach might lead to violent, uncontrollable street riots (similar to those that occurred
in the summer of 1998 after security and militia forces attacked students at the University of
Tehran), Khatami has been reticent and non-resolute under pressure.
These circumstances underlie what
some have called a political dead end in Iranian politics. Openly embarrassed about his
inability to counter the onslaught of anti-reform tactics, Khatami has remained hesitant
to run for a second term unless he can be assured of a less hindered presidency. With that
assurance not forthcoming, Khatami's no-win predicament has developed into a no-win quandary
for the entire nation. Even the anti-reform forces cannot count on outright success. Unable
to come up with a popular candidate or platform, yet unable to forcibly rule through
non-elected institutions, these forces have remained wedded to their obstructionist strategy.
Although effective in temporarily impeding reform, this strategy lacks a realistic vision of
how to govern a multi-voiced country ready for nonviolent, coherent reform. As such, the
anti-reform forces are ridden with defections, divisions, and hesitance within their own
ranks.
Such gridlock has created the potential
for the Iranian electorate (about two-thirds of the country's population) to trade its
patience for indifference, robbing the Islamic state of all its legitimacy. Although
second-term presidential elections have always drawn low voter turnouts (as did the
reelections of Khamenei in 1985 and Rafsanjani in 1993), a low turnout based on
disappointment and disillusionment would be troublesome, particularly after the high
expectations of the past few years.
Some observers maintain that democratic
legitimacy has never been a concern for the anti-reform forces, as long as their political
power can be assured through their opaque economic dealings with and through various
governmental and semi-governmental institutions. Some even argue that as a "power Mafia"
(a term openly used in Iran), the anti-reform forces actually thrive in chaos and
confusion.
Although this observation may be
partially correct, the intense political competition that has pervaded Tehran over the
past several years has now reached a point where no single political force can administer
and control the country without some sort of truce or agreement among all the key political
players. Various forces each have enough political muscle to obstruct the progress of their
opponents, even if they are not strong enough to defend themselves against similar attacks.
But none of these forces is individually capable of thwarting a popular uprising against the
Islamic regime. This is a real concern, given that Iran's electorate (65 percent of which is
under 25 years old) sees the state as paralyzed by internal conflicts and unresponsive to
popular demands and needs. The upcoming presidential election brings all these tensions and
stakes into sharper focus, exposing all sides of the Iranian political struggle to an
unprecedented standstill and crisis.
Institutional Gridlock
Today's political stalemate traces back to the 1979
post-revolutionary constitution (amended in 1989), which gives both reformists and hard-liners enough ammunition to advance their own versions of how the Islamic Republic should be run. On the one hand, Article Six of the constitution vests the citizenry with the full power to elect the president, the parliament, the Assembly of Experts (a clerical body in charge of selecting the supreme religious leader), and the city and village councils. On the other hand, the constitution also contains a number of clauses that either explicitly or implicitly run counter to the principles of popular sovereignty.
Since the revolution, the Guardian Council (which is composed of clerics and legal scholars appointed by
the supreme religious leader) has slowly expanded its tasks to include not only the supervision of all elections
but also the vetting of all electoral candidates. In the 1997 presidential election-an open race with no incumbent-the
Guardian Council approved only 4 of the 238 registered candidates. Compare this to the approval of 106 out of
124 registered candidates during the first post-revolutionary election of 1980, in which the Guardian Council did
not participate in the vetting process. This year, according to the Guardian Council, 814 individuals (including two members of Khatami's own cabinet) registered to run for president-more than all the candidates in previous presidential elections combined. Because Iran lacks well-established political parties and interest groups, many citizens feel free to run for office without the support of organized political institutions. This year, Iran's free-for-all election process confronted the Guardian Council with the almost impossible task of reviewing the eligibility of all the registered candidates in just five days. Unable to check the backgrounds of so many candidates in such a short period of time, the Guardian Council extended its deadline another week. In the end, the council approved ten candidates-more than usual. Nevertheless, its arbitrary and unexplained rejection of the other 804 candidates ran counter to the seemingly democratic prerogative of nearly every citizen to run for president.
This situation reflects the tensions and contradictions between not only the democratic and undemocratic elements of the Iranian constitution but also the popular and Divine sovereignties upon which the Islamic Republic is presumably based. Instead of trying to create an institutional framework that would reduce these tensions, however, Iran's political players have simply added more institutional layers to intervene in the case of conflict. As a result, state institutions regularly and systematically compete for power, and defeated political players simply move to other institutions instead of leaving public life. After Khatami's 1997 election, for example, many officials who had previously staffed the Interior and Information Ministries (which were in charge of internal security and intelligence, as well as holding elections) conveniently began to influence institutions outside Khatami's control, such as the judiciary, the Revolutionary Guards, and the Guardian Council. The Guardian Council then further intensified its role in vetting all electoral candidates, thus undercutting the Interior Ministry's authority to hold elections. At the same time, the judiciary coordinated with parts of the Revolutionary Guards to create its own security and intelligence institutions that it now regularly uses to arrest opponents for a variety of political crimes, including the nebulous charge of "working to overthrow the Islamic Republic."
Such conflict among Iran's political elite is not new. In fact, it explained the 1979 revolutionary regime's inability to sustain a unified party similar to that of the Soviet Union or the People's Republic of China. In the Islamic Republic's early years, however, competing political elements were kept under control by both the forceful personality of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and the war against Iraq. Even for several years after Khomeini's death in 1989, Iran's major political fault lines remained hidden. But over the last few years, after the popular victories of Khatami and other reformists, the fault lines have emerged clearly. The reformists have taken over all the elected bodies, except the Assembly of Experts, the 1997 election for which many voters boycotted because of the Guardian Council's highly interventionist role in the vetting of candidates. In turn, the conservatives have increasingly relied on non-elected bodies to hold on to their power. This opposition has fed a public perception, both inside and outside Iran, of a stark
confrontation between reformists and hard-liners, between elected and non-elected institutions, and between forces for and against democracy. But in reality, the competition on the ground is among a plurality-not a duality-of voices. This complexity helps explain why this year's election season has been marked with confusion rather than clarity.
The Key Players
At the center of this electoral
confusion stands President Mohammad Khatami, who dragged his feet before announcing he
would run for a second term. His hesitance-which has become the election season's main
topic of discussion-seems to have stemmed from both personal and political reasons. As
a mild-tempered intellectual, Khatami was a personally reluctant candidate even in 1997,
when he was pushed into the political spotlight because no other candidates were willing
or appealing enough to run. The subsequent attacks on his allies by anti-reform forces
added a political dimension to his hesitance.
However, as in the previous election,
these reservations have given way to practical political calculations. Because he is
the most visible symbol of the reform movement, a decision not to run would have at
least temporarily signaled the movement's defeat. Khatami thus ultimately decided to
run, although he chose to keep his opponents in the dark until the last possible moment,
giving them less time to react to his candidacy. Moreover, when he finally announced his
decision, he placed less emphasis on his platform than he did four years ago, choosing
instead to focus on his current predicament. He did not present himself as an eager
candidate, admitting that "many have suffered, and there is still a risk that others
will be abandoned to their fates."
Nevertheless, Khatami's second-term
candidacy has drawn sustained support from the same centrist-leftist coalition that backed
his first-term campaign. This loose coalition, known as the Second Khordad Front (named for
the date of Khatami's first presidential election), is composed of 18 organizations with
disparate interests and ideological orientations. The front's own internal divisions, weak
organization, and doubts about Khatami's effectiveness have only exacerbated the chaos of
this year's election.
On the moderate to conservative end
of the Second Khordad Front stands the Association of Combatant Clerics, of which Khatami
is a member. An offshoot of the Society for Combatant Clergy, the main post-revolutionary
clerical organization, this group includes many former government officials whose records
do not necessarily indicate support for either reform or democracy. Accordingly, some see
the group's support for a reform agenda as an opportunistic move to regain popularity.
On the leftist end of Khatami's
coalition are the Islamic Iran Participation Front (a group of younger revolutionary
cadres currently headed by the president's brother) and the Islamic Revolution Mojahedeen
Organization, which has declared that the June election will be a "referendum" between
"reforms and their irreversibility" and "conservatism and closure." Both groups coordinate
closely with a variety of student and more radical reformist organizations and have
publicly discussed Khatami's ineffectiveness, suggesting that anti-reformists must
agree to change their political behavior before Khatami runs. Some members of the Islamic
Iran Solidarity Party (another element of Khatami's coalition) have even advocated putting
forth other candidates besides Khatami, despite their likely rejection by the Guardian
Council. Several well-known reformists did in fact register to run, including Ebrahim
Asgharzadeh, a member of Tehran's city council and a former student leader involved
in the 1979 takeover of the U.S. embassy in Tehran. Ultimately, Asgharzadeh's candidacy
was not approved-and in any case, all the members of the Second Khordad Front ended up
declaring their support for Khatami's candidacy before the list of approved candidates
was finalized. Nevertheless, the more radical reformists within Khatami's coalition
remain concerned about his ability to advance reform.
Between the two ideological poles of the Second Khordad Front stands the
centrist, economics-oriented Servants of Construction, which in 1997 was led by then
President Rafsanjani. Since then, this group has lost much of its influence due to
internal divisions regarding its relations with the former president. Nevertheless,
its support for Khatami is significant because it suggests a distancing from Rafsanjani.
Also among Khatami's supporters are a number of religious groups that advocate a less
interventionist, more humane, and less austere Islam. At the core of these groups stands
the Freedom Movement of Iran, founded by Mehdi Bazargan, Iran's first prime minister after
the 1979 revolution. Since then and until very recently, it was Iran's only tolerated,
official opposition group. Today it suffers from weak organization and coercion from
the anti-reform forces. In the last several months, for example, more that 70 people
loosely associated with the Freedom Movement of Iran have been arrested by the judiciary,
and several of them have been charged with "working to overthrow the Islamic Republic."
Nevertheless, the group's more lenient and democratic interpretation of Islam remains
popular and fits well with a political reform agenda. Moreover, its support for Khatami
remains important because its alternative vision of Islam offers a platform around which a
weakly organized reform movement can coalesce and be sustained.
In contrast to the Second Khordad Front,
the anti-reform forces are unpopular but strongly organized (insofar as they have been able to
sustain attacks on the president and the parliament). Brought together in a loose coalition of
16 organizations identified as the Followers of Imam's Line and Leadership, their vision of
Islam and their attacks on political opponents have grown increasingly unpopular. This
unpopularity has become a source of internal division: although the group includes a variety
of voices, two broad inclinations can be identified.
The first consists of hard-liners organized by the Islamic Coalition Association, a powerful
group run by business leaders that control much of the non-petroleum trade in Iran.
These leaders are also closely linked to large foundations that began as charities to
help war victims and the poor but have since become non-transparent economic empires.
Solidly in control of the court system, particularly the Revolutionary Court, the Press
Court, and the Special Court of Clergy, this group has intimidated and imprisoned its
reformist opponents in the press and the government. It has been so active that it has
effectively overshadowed the Society for Combatant Clergy, which until the 1997 election
had been the main platform from which presidential candidates emerged. In this year's
election, the Society for Combatant Clergy has remained quiet, leaving the political
strategizing to the more hard-line elements.
The hard-liners' initial strategy was to embarrass Khatami
so that he would feel either so uncomfortable or so frustrated by his failure to deliver on
his 1997 campaign promises that he would voluntarily withdraw from the race. Khatami's
decision to run obviously nullified this strategy. Given the dearth of popular candidates
on their side, the hard-liners then shifted their strategy to support not any one candidate
of their own but a flood of candidates-including reformists, anti-reformists, and candidates
from provinces dominated by ethnic minorities-to divert votes from Khatami. The Guardian
Council endorsed this strategy, which was reportedly devised and promoted by Ayatollah
Khamenei, when it approved ten candidates, a higher number than ever before. The approved
candidates include two clerics (Khatami and former Intelligence Minister Ali Fallahian),
two members of Khatami's own cabinet (Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani and Vice President
Mostafa Hashemi-Taba), two former ministers (former Labor Minister Ahmad Tavakoli and
former Energy Minister Hassan Ghafouri-Fard), two academics (Islamic Azad University
Chancellor Abdollah Jasbi and Shahid Beheshti University Professor Mahmoud Kashani),
a former member of the parliament (Shahabeddin Sadr), and a member of Tehran's city
council (Mansour Razavi). Khatami and his cabinet members can be considered reformists,
although the mere candidacy of the two ministers against their president brings this
designation into question. Kashani, previously associated with the conservatives, is
now more of an independent critic of both the reformists and the anti-reformists. The
rest of the candidates are right of center, with Fallahian representing the most
hard-line position.
The hard-liners hope that such a large
number of candidates will encourage a high voter turnout, thus lending the appearance of
democratic legitimacy, while ensuring a lower percentage of votes cast for Khatami. Defense
Minister Shamkhani, for example, could steal Khatami's votes among the military and the
Revolutionary Guards, as well as in his home province of Khuzestan. Likewise, Tavakoli
could do well in the western province of Kordestan, a region he carried when he ran against
Rafsanjani in 1993. And Jasbi, by promising to eliminate university entrance examinations,
may undercut Khatami's support among the youth. Ultimately, the hard-liners hope that a large
combination of votes not cast for Khatami will undercut the president's claim to popular
sovereignty and perhaps even force a rerun if he does not win at least half the vote.
Although the hard-line strategy is quite clear, its implications are not, particularly
for the more moderate elements of the anti-reform coalition. These individuals do not
necessarily oppose the idea of reform but are uncomfortable with what they deem too
rapid a pace of liberalization. At the same time, however, they have not come up with
an alternative strategy that would distance themselves from the hard-line tendencies
within their own ranks. Accordingly, they have become identified with a strategy that
effectively weakens Khatami but does not improve their own standing. Exacerbating this
predicament is the dissension among key conservative leaders, such as the reported
conflict between Khamenei and Rafsanjani, which offers an image of a leadership unable
to rule through sheer force.
The
Fundamental Debate
On face, the issues at stake in this
year's presidential election are similar to those in the 1997 election. In that election,
despite Nateq-Nouri's efforts to make the economy the main issue, the electorate was clearly
moved by the call for political reform. After four years of intense political conflict, the
issues surrounding the need for reform are even more crystallized today. But this year's
election debate has gone beyond issues of reform to include discussions about the current
political gridlock and its implication for the survival of the Islamic state. Without some
sort of agreement among key political players and institutions about how to run the country,
other pressing issues-such as healing an ailing economy, expanding opportunities for the
youth, and improving relations with the United States-will either remain unresolved or be
handled unimaginatively through existing mechanisms.
Nevertheless, the reformist platform remains philosophically clear, even if its practical direction remains unknown. The reformists continue to argue that Khatami's presidency is the Islamic Republic's last chance for survival and that political reform is necessary not only because of the Islamic state's heavy-handed and corrupt policies
but also because of the socioeconomic changes that have occurred over the past 20 years.
Iran, they argue, is a country of young, educated, urban, and increasingly middle class
individuals. In arenas ranging from economics to the arts, these dynamic individuals
have proven creative and successful. But the exclusionary policies of the Islamic state
have prevented qualified people from contributing to the political process as well.
As a result, these people perceive the state as a fetter to their activities and refuse
to grant it legitimacy and support. The reformists argue that a more democratic process
would offer these individuals a mechanism through which they could remain integrated in
the Islamic Republic and help shape its future.
The anti-reform platform, on the other hand, demonizes the entire concept of democracy as a
Western import. Whether hard-liners oppose the democratic process for ideological reasons or
for fear that it would hold them accountable for their past objectionable economic and
political activities (including the alleged murder of many dissidents) is not entirely
clear. What is clear, however, is their consistent defense of the supreme religious leader
as the main political authority, although they are not necessarily sanguine about Khamenei's
current ability to exert absolute political control. Instead of an Islamic Republic,
they want an Islamic government-meaning a state that derives its legitimacy not from popular
support but from what they define as Islamic principles. As such, they argue that any
conflicts between the democratic and undemocratic elements of the constitution, or
between popular demands and unpopular Islamic principles, should always be resolved in
favor of Islamic principles, as defined and interpreted by the supreme religious leader.
Clearly, this stance can in no way be transformed into a popular party platform. (To be
sure, the anti-reform forces do have some popular support, as evidenced by the 25 percent
of the vote that Nateq-Nouri garnered in the 1997 presidential election. But this support
stems less from a convincing platform than from the economically powerful patronage system
that these forces have at their disposal.) This unpopularity has prevented the main leaders
of the anti-reform forces from running for president. In fact, those presidential candidates
who have traditionally been associated with the anti-reform forces, such as Fallahian,
Tavakoli, Jasbi, and Ghafouri-Fard, are now running as independents.
None of these candidates poses a threat to Khatami, although nothing can be taken for
granted in the fluid and ever-changing dynamics of Iranian politics. Khatami's concern
is not that any particular candidate will beat him but that the percentage of votes cast
for him will be low enough to give the anti-reformists ammunition to further weaken his
presidency. Such an outcome would make his second term similar to that of President
Rafsanjani, whose programs were derailed by the hard-liners that controlled the parliament
at the time. A high voter turnout in favor of Khatami, on the other hand, would reiterate
the popularity of his reform project, strengthening his bargaining power within the system
and enhancing the chance of a negotiated settlement with the hard-liners. It would also
improve his chances of appointing a cabinet to his liking, which the unfriendly parliament
of his first term denied. In the end, however, even a sweeping victory at the polls will
not guarantee a reformist victory in future negotiations with other political players.
Implications for U.S.-Iran Relations
If Tehran's intense internal conflicts remain unresolved, important issues such as relations
with the United States will remain hostage to daily political crises. This does not mean that
the desire to resume some form of relations with the United States does not exist in Iran.
In fact, recent polls suggest that most Iranians support the restoration of relations with
the United States, following Iran's improved relations with many other countries. Some
newspapers have even called for a national referendum on the issue. In fact, it is now safe
to say that forces across the political spectrum, despite protestation to the contrary, are
all interested in resuming some sort of ties with the United States. Reformists have publicly
discussed the need for "rationality" in U.S.-Iran relations, arguing that a "no talk,
no ties" situation does not serve Iran's national interests. Accordingly, they have supported
more transparent relations with the United States so that some of the more harmful aspects
of the diplomatic freeze, such as U.S. economic sanctions and the lack of an American
diplomatic mission in Iran, can be left behind.
Even Iranians on the other end of the political spectrum do not wholly reject relations with the United States. Many individuals who publicly and vehemently oppose direct diplomatic relations with the United States have nevertheless expressed no qualms about under-the-table economic relations with American companies. In fact, some well-known opponents of reform, such as Habibollah Askar-Owladi of the Islamic Coalition Association, have publicly suggested that some aspects of relations with the United States may soon improve, given the economic (read: oil) interests that dominate the Bush administration.
Nevertheless, an assessment of the current conditions in both countries suggests that the knot in U.S.-Iran relations will persist for all the familiar reasons. From the Iranian point of view, fundamental disagreements on policies such as continued U.S. sanctions and Iran's right to pursue nuclear energy will make a rapprochement difficult. Hard-liners, for example, will point to U.S. sanctions to demonstrate that Washington remains the enemy and the "source of all wrongs." They will also attack the reformists for considering relations with the United States even as sanctions persist. Thus, even reformists will be reluctant to cross such a politically dangerous threshold.
A similar threshold exists in the United States. This August, Congress will decide whether to renew the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act (ILSA), which prohibits international companies from investing in Iran. Letting the sanctions expire will be politically difficult, especially in light of Iran's turbulent politics and the anti-reform attacks over the last year. President Bill Clinton had hoped that the easing of trade restrictions during the last months of his administration would elicit a positive response from the Iranian Foreign Ministry, which is now presumably directed by reformists. But a lack of response from Tehran has made further concessions by Washington even more unlikely.
Squeezed by conflicting interests and faced with an unyielding and confusing Iran, the Bush administration faces a dilemma. On the one hand, years of multifarious sanctions have not led to their intended results. Clinton's 1995 trade and investment sanctions have prevented American companies from investing in Iran, while ILSA's extraterritorial sanctions have been either ignored by European and Asian companies or waived by the Clinton administration in order to deflect complaints to the World Trade Organization. Thus, the sanctions have only prevented American oil companies from competing for exploration in Iran-cutting them off, for example, from the newly discovered Azadegan oil field (reportedly one of the most important field discoveries in the Middle East in the past two decades). On the other hand, lifting sanctions would be a major policy shift-one that would not likely result in an immediate commensurate shift in policy or rhetoric by Tehran. A unilateral U.S. move, then, would create a window of vulnerability that could be sustained only if the Bush administration were to accept it as a short-term cost for a more effective Iran policy in the long term. This outcome, however, is highly unlikely. Not only is Iran not a high priority for U.S. foreign policy, but Washington continues to disapprove of what it sees as Iran's continued and even recently enhanced support of terrorism in the Middle East, as well as its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction.
At this point, the renewal of ILSA (or a variation thereof) seems assured, despite suggestions that the Bush administration might propose alternative sanctions. The most Iran can expect, then, is for the Bush administration to bring U.S. investment sanctions in line with ILSA by allowing American companies to invest up to $20 million in Iran. But if, as reported, the FBI publicly identifies several Iranian leaders as the main culprits behind the Khobar Tower bombing, relations will likely deteriorate before they improve. Under these circumstances, a U.S. policy shift will depend on an Iranian one-which, again, is highly unlikely.
With both countries awaiting major policy shifts from the other side, the most likely outcome will be the continuation of the current situation. Even if diplomatic relations do not resume, contacts among individuals and private organizations will continue to grow. These increased contacts will pave the way for better relations or put future relations on a fast track to reconciliation once the major stumbling blocks are removed.
In any case, anyone wishing to interact with Iran must recognize the ongoing competition, negotiation, and even open conflict among the country's many political players. Unless these various political forces devise workable mechanisms to resolve their conflicts, the Islamic Republic will continue to lose legitimacy and may ultimately face collapse. The reelection of President Khatami could give Iran another four years to devise such mechanisms. Winning a high percentage of votes would enhance his potential. But even a sweeping victory cannot guarantee success as a turbulent Tehran waits for its key political players to agree on the rules of their game.
Specialists
Hooshang Amirahmadi
Professor
Department of Urban Planning and Policy Development
Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Policy Development
Rutgers University
33 Livingston Avenue, Room 367
New Brunswick, NJ 08901-1958
Tel: 732-932-3822
Fax: 609-279-9889
E-mail: houshang@bellatlantic.net
Farideh Farhi
Adjunct Scholar
Middle East Institute
7007 Hawaii Kai Drive, #C-16
Honolulu, HI 96825
Tel: 808-396-4163
Fax: 808-396-4163
E-mail: ffarhi@hawaii.rr.com
Elahe Sharifpour-Hicks
Researcher
Middle East and North Africa Division
Human Rights Watch
350 Fifth Avenue, 34th Floor
New York, NY 10118-3299
Tel: 212-290-4700
Fax: 212-736-1300
Suzanne Maloney
Research Associate
The Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, D.C. 20036
Tel: 202-797-6042
Fax: 202-797-6003
E-mail: smaloney@brook.edu
Robert Pelletreau
Partner
Afridi Angell & Pelletreau, LLP
1025 Connecticut Avenue NW, Suite 904
Washington, D.C. 20036
Tel: 202-518-8900
Fax: 202-518-8903
Elaine Sciolino
Senior Writer
The New York Times
1627 I Street NW
Washington, D.C. 20006
Tel: 202-862-0300
Fax: 202-862-0427
E-mail: elscio@nytimes.com
Gary G. Sick
Acting Director
Middle East Institute
Columbia University
420 West 118th Street
New York, NY 10027
Tel: 212-854-2584
Fax: 212-854-1413
E-mail: ggs2@columbia.edu
Roxanne Varzi
Graduate Student
Department of Anthropology
Columbia University
452 Schermerhorn Extension
1200 Amsterdam Avenue
New York, NY 10027
Tel: 212-854-4552
Fax: 212-854-7347
E-mail: rv71@columbia.edu
Further Reading
Adlekhah, Fariba. Being Modern in Iran. Translated by Jonathan Derrick. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000.
Amuzegar, Jahangir. "Iran's Post-Revolution Planning: The Second Try." Middle
East Policy vol. 8, no.1 (March 2001).
Ansari, Ali, and Anoushiravan Ehteshami. Iran, Islam & Democracy:
The Politics of Managing Change. London: Royal Institute of International
Affairs, 2000.
Bakhtiari, Bahman. Parliamentary Politics in Revolutionary Iran:
Institutionalization of Factional of Politics. Gainesville: University
Press of Florida, 1996.
Ehteshami, Anoushiravan. After Khomeini: The Iranian Second Republic. London: Routledge, 1995.
Esposito, John, and R.K. Ramazani, ed. Iran at the Crossroads. New York: Palgrave, 2001.
Fairbanks, Stephen C. "Iran: No Easy Answers." Journal
of International Affairs vol. 54, no. 2 (Spring 2001): 447-64.
Schirazi, Asghar. The Constitution of Iran: Politics and the State
in the Islamic Republic. Translated by John O'Keene. London:
I.B. Tauris, 1998.
Sciolino, Elaine. Persian Mirrors: The Elusive Face of Iran. New York: The Free Press, 2000.
Wright, Robin. The Last Great Revolution: Turmoil and Transformation
in Iran. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000.
Farideh Farhi
is Adjunct Scholar at the Middle East Institute and the author of States
and Urban-Based Revolutions in Iran and Nicaragua (University
of Illinois Press, 1990). She is currently researching the changing political landscape of Iran for a project funded
by the United States Institute of Peace.
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