Iran's Islamic republic at 35: ready for talks with West, but not for sweeping social reform
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Version 0 of 1. Picture of Ayatollah Khomeini overshadows huge anti-Shah demonstration at the Shayah monument on Dec. 10, 1978, in Tehran. An estimated one million people filed peacefully through the city chanting support for their spiritual leader, and calling for the end of the Shah's rule. (Michel Lipchitz/AP) TEHRAN-- Thirty-five years after the founding of its Islamic republic, Iran is in the midst of a transformative period, facing challenges?? and opportunities hardly imaginable when Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini arrived here from exile in February 1979. or TEHRAN — Thirty-five years after the founding of its Islamic republic, Iran is in the midst of a transformative period, with its relations with the United States warming in a way that was hardly imaginable when Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini arrived here from exile in February 1979. On Tuesday, the Islamic state is expected to mark its anniversary, as it does every year, with massive public rallies and speeches from top officials. But the speech by President Hassan Rouhani is likely to carry a starkly different tone from the defiant addresses delivered by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during his eight years as president. “Regardless of how good or bad Ahmadinejad was, I think the fact that he’s no longer president, in itself, has eased a lot of tension,” Mohammad Marandi, a professor of ??? at Tehran University, said of the former president, who infuriated the West with ???????. It’s not that the tough rhetoric has disappeared. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said in an address Saturday to Iranian Air Force commanders that the U.S. government was “lying” about not seeking regime change in the country. “If they had the ability to do this, they would not hesitate for a second,” he said. But Khamenei has approved a less combative approach to the West, especially in negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program. That is fueling hope here that Iran can win a lifting of tough international sanctions, the root of its economic woes. Iran’s shift in international diplomacy has generated the strongest consensus within its political establishment in many years, and follows a prolonged period of bitter infighting (about what???) during Ahmadinejad’s second term. Iran still has other differences with world powers, notably over its support for Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad in that country’s civil war. And Rouhani still faces domestic hurdles over his xxxxx??? Many Iranians are unconvinced that the theocracy can evolve in ways that will improve their lives. Domestically, Rouhani’s government is focusing on righting Iran’s wobbly economy, hobbled by annual ? inflation of over 30 percent and high unemployment. The president has not answered calls from many Iranians for expanded civil liberties and social reforms. On Iran’s nuclear dispute with the West, Rouhani enjoys the support of Khamenei, who has given the president a free hand in negotiations with world powers. Khamenei accepted a more flexible approach when Rouhani entered office, allowing Iran’s nuclear negotiating team to broker an interim deal with world powers that eased some sanctions in exchange for Iran curbing its most controversial uranium enrichment activities. (Need line of background on West’s fears of a bomb, Iran saying it’s just seeking nuclear energy). Khamenei called the decision to negotiate without the resistance that was a hallmark of the Ahmadinejad years?? an act of “heroic flexibility.” That phrase was, “intended to relay the message that Iran's top leadership in general, and the leader in particular, should not be viewed as a stumbling block to negotiations and peaceful resolution of the nuclear issue,” said Farideh Farhi, a U.S.-based Iran analyst. The Islamic republic is unlikely to abandon its new strategy, due to the Iranian public’s heightened expectations of an easing of sanctions and a corresponding improvement in the economy. “Tehran is in it for the long haul, because they need the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow,” said Suzanne Maloney, a senior research fellow at Saban Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings Institute. SUBHEAD Despite the economic hardships of recent years,, Iran’s government seems to be one of the most entrenched in the troubled Middle East. Not since the 1989-97 presidency of Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a close ally of Rouhani’s, has the Islamic republic enjoyed the sort of consensus it does right now between (religious conservatives and moderate Islamists???). “The Islamic Republic is in the most unified state that it has been in over two decades. Right now the extremes in all parties and factions have been largely discredited. The center in general is stronger and those on the periphery have been weakened,” Marandi said. Still, while many Iranians seem to approve of Rouhani’s pragmatic approach, his government is not producing the kind of social change that many citizens had hoped to see. Those expecting a return to the years of a more open society ushered in with the election of Mohammad Khatami in 1997 have been disappointed by the slow progress of domestic change. Rouhani exerted a lot of effort to court the supporters of the stalled reform movement that preceded Ahmadinejad, and despite early efforts to promote greater social flexibility??? in society, longstanding restrictions persist. The number of executions in Iran is still among the highest in the world, the fate of university students who were expelled for political activities during the Ahmadinejad presidency is still undecided, and no discernible progress has been made on reducing Internet censorship. “Rouhani is first and foremost a pragmatist, and where domestic reforms serve his purposes he will press for them. But this is very different than the kind of philosophical commitment to civil society and rule of law that Khatami demonstrated,” Maloney said. Domestic issues may become increasingly pressing in the coming months, especially if a final nuclear agreement is reached. For the time being, however, it appears that Iran’s government has calculated that addressing foreign policy issues outweighs its ??? concerns at home. |