Khatami Expected To Steer Pragmatic Course During Second Term
Q&A with Gary Sick: 6/11/01

Iranian President Mohammad Khatami won a second term in a electoral landslide on June 8. The reform-minded Khatami received unprecedented support – 21.6 million votes, or about 77 percent of the ballots cast – for a president seeking re-election. His closest rival, conservative former supply minister Ahmad Tavakoil, received 15 percent of the vote. EurasiaNet spoke to Gary Sick, director of the Middle East Institute at Columbia University, about the election results and reform possibilities in Iran. The transcript of the interview follows:

EurasiaNet: What do you expect President Khatami to do with his election mandate? During the campaign, he seemed to be hesitant about his candidacy. Was this a tactical maneuver, or do you think he’s a genuinely reluctant leader?

Sick: I think his reluctance is genuine in the sense that I believe, as he said, he had been through a tunnel of crises for the last four years, and that he believed that this is actually going to continue, or perhaps even get worse, during the next four years. In fact, his wife has said publicly that he told her not to expect it to get any better during the second term.

I think he had genuine concerns that he could not easily satisfy the demands of many of his supporters. Younger people are especially impatient. They would like to see more action, see Khatami take a more confrontational position. But I think his belief is that the only way he is going to make any real progress with his reform program is to take a slow patient approach, and avoid the kind of outright confrontation that would give the hardliners an excuse to intervene with security forces. … Khatami, by instinct, is not a street fighter. … He’s a gentle man – much more of an intellectual. But at the same time, he really believed that if he was going to succeed with his reform program, there was really nobody else who could step in. … It was a reluctant decision, but having made that decision, I think he’s probably going to be somewhat better equipped this time around than he was the last time.

EurasiaNet: How do you expect the conservatives to respond to the election?

Sick: It is really impossible to speak about ‘the’ conservatives because, in fact, they come in a wide variety of factions. The ultra-hardliners are probably going to be dismayed by the results, and probably be determined to redouble their efforts to insist that Islamic sanctities be maintained. They will also likely look for opportunities to reduce, in their view, the unfortunate relaxation of social codes. I think there is not much that can be done about these people.

There is, however, a significant and perhaps growing body of what might be called ‘centrist’ conservatives … who are promoting what is called ‘religious new thinking.’ They are saying, in effect, that merely reiterating the old slogans of the revolution is not working, and is not going to work. They are concerned that the more conservative elements in the country have been left behind, and are losing their legitimacy … As a result, the system, the structure of the Islamic republic, is at risk. They are talking about ways in which both Islam and Democracy can be reinterpreted, leaving open the possibility of real progress and bringing these two sides somewhat together.

EurasiaNet: How will the elections impact the reform movement?

Sick: Khatami has differences of opinion within his own camp. The so-called reformers are not entirely united. What Khatami has to do in order to succeed in the second term is to come up with a strategy that is pragmatic. Khatami and the people around him have learned a great deal in the last four years. They came in four years ago with a very large mandate and what might be termed ‘irrational exuberance.’ They were prepared to change everything. They felt they were in the ascendancy. The hardliners have really struck back very viciously, throwing people in jail, closing newspapers, impeaching cabinet members that they didn’t like and so forth. … Khatami and the people around him no longer have any illusions that simply having a large popular mandate is sufficient. They know they also have to be clever, and must have a strategy based on pragmatic realism. The problem for him now is to put together such a strategy and to pursue it.

There are two fundamental dilemmas: the more thoughtful conservatives realize that Khatami perhaps represents their very best hope. He is not a counter-revolutionary. He wants to change the system from within, maintaining the Islamic republic while humanizing it with a democratic form. There are some conservatives who understand this, and that they need to work with Khatami. But it’s not clear how far the hard right-wing will permit the centrists to go in cooperating with Khatami. Second, Khatami faces a number of people in his own camp who are very impatient, especially students, and who want immediate progress, and who are prepared to take to the streets to realize their goals. I believe that Khatami believes that if they go to the street, this movement will be, over time, crushed by the security forces, and the entire reform movement will stall. So he has to keep his people under control, and this is not so easy.

EurasiaNet: What areas offer the most potential for reform efforts?

Sick: Khatami has some interesting possibilities, both in terms of legislative priorities, and particularly on the economic side, where he can begin to make some changes. I would like to point out that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei [Iran’s supreme religious leader] has made two very important statements recently. One, he has specifically identified the people as the determining factor in the Islamic state, meaning that the people’s voice must be recognized. Secondly, he’s made a profound declaration against corruption, and called for it to be rooted out. That provides an opening, where Khatami, acting in the name of reducing corruption, could begin to reexamine some of the institutions of the Islamic state – particularly the bonyads, or Islamic foundations. These were created at the time of the Iranian revolution to oversee large commercial holdings that were nationalized. They operate as essentially independent organizations – they don’t pay taxes and are not accountable. But they receive a lot of state support, and they account for anywhere from 40 percent to 70 percent of Iran’s GDP outside the oil and gas sector. They are rife with corruption. … There is a lot of room there for reexamination, and, by focusing on corruption, Khatami could begin to deal with economic issues that are very important to his own supporters, especially young people looking for jobs. At the same time, he could use the words of Khamenei to push the system in a direction where it not only has economic implications, but also political implications.

EurasiaNet: What do the election results say about civil society development in Iran?

Sick: People, under Khatami, have felt there is an opening for them to create their own [non-governmental] organizations, to make their voices heard in ways that were not really possible before. What is missing … is a genuine political party that would bring together diverse elements and mobilize them to make an impact on Iranian politics from the bottom up. They [reform-minded forces] talked about this at the time of Khatami’s election in 1997, but they never got around to it. As it is now, political parties tend to be half a dozen people in Tehran who put out a manifesto, and maybe publish a newspaper, and reflect a certain point of view. But they have no mass base, or mass mobilization ability. This is something that really needs to be done, and the first group in Iran to put together a really effective grass-roots party is probably going to dominate Iranian politics for the next 20 years.

EurasiaNet: Do the elections confirm that the people believe in the power of the ballot box?

Sick: Yes. Iran actually has a interesting history of protest. … It started a century ago with the constitutional revolution of 1906 … and it was certainly present at the time of the Iranian revolution of 1978-79. And I think what we’re seeing now is that it’s also very much part of the political process. … Iranians went to the polls in record numbers. Why? Because they felt this is the one way that they could express themselves in terms of promoting democratic reforms. They do believe in this, and even though Khatami was less than successful the first time around, they don’t see any alternatives. In addition, the ballot box is a way of making a statement without having to take to the streets. I don’t think most Iranians want another revolution. They’ve been around that track, they know what happens. … In this sense, Khatami is perhaps more successful than people give him credit for. The political discourse today is all about democracy. … He has changed the nature of the political vocabulary in Iran.

Editor’s Note: Gary Sick served on the National Security Council staff during the Ford, Carter and Reagan administrations. He has written two books concerning Iran, including October Surprise: American Hostages in Iran and the Election of Ronald Reagan. He is also director of Gulf 2000, an international research project on policy developments in the Persian Gulf.

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Posted June 11, 2001 © Eurasianet
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