The Evolution of the Iranian Presidency

Deciphering Iran:

The Political Evolution of the Islamic Republic and U.S. Foreign Policy After September 11

Bahram Rajaee

In the aftermath of 9/11, the Bush administration has pursued a robust and aggressive foreign policy. The invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq have not only placed the Bush administration in conflict with longstanding U. S. allies and the majority of global public opinion, but it has also found itself in an awkward position vis-à-vis the Islamic Republic of Iran, the dominant regional power in Southwest Asia and nemesis of the United States following the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Since the Revolution, U. S.-Iranian relations have been suspicious, hostile, and at times violent. From a historical perspective, it is increasingly evident that the unseating of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the U. S.'s close ally of more than three decades, was a watershed event with ramifications that continue to affect Iran, Southwest Asia, and the United States. Today, the pursuit of U. S. interests and the quest for regional stability—in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Persian Gulf, the Caspian Sea, and Central Asia—leads in numerous and overlapping paths squarely back to Iran.

The Bush Doctrine is defined by an emphasis on the right of the United States to use preemptive force against terrorists and their state sponsors; it has at its core a moral worldview that starkly contrasts good versus evil, and it makes no distinction between those who carry out acts of terrorism and those who harbor terrorists.¹The consequences in U. S. foreign policy have included an aversion to nuance in favor of "moral clarity," and President Bush's message to the rest of the world that "either you are either with us, or you are with the terrorists."² In this context, it is no surprise that the Bush administration's approach to Iran has shown little appreciation for the impact of its actions upon the competition for political power in Iran today between radical and modernist Islamists—two prominent factions within the ruling clergy that disagree profoundly on the role of Islam in society.

The significance of the differences between radical and modernist Islamists is crucial due to the de facto compression of all political interaction in Iran after 1979 into the only remaining framework and discourse: Islamism, or the use of the religion of Islam as a basis for political mobilization. Political agendas and policymaking among the clerical elite in contemporary Iran are therefore shaped by factional differences rooted in Islamist ideology, which are of great relevance to U. S.-Iranian relations. The radical Islamists are widely referred to in the West as "conservatives" because of their adherence to dogmatic Islamic extremism, and they maintain a hold on the Islamic Republic's unelected but dominant centers of power. They also generally oppose normalized relations with the U. S. The modernist Islamists are widely referred to in the West as "reformists" due to their opposition to the monopoly on religious interpretation and political power claimed by the radicals. They favor greater democratization and the restoration of normal ties with the United States as part of a broader reversal of Iran's post-1979 isolation. However, the factionalization of Islamists in Iran transcends this simplified explanation. A more comprehensive understanding of the evolution of Islamism in Iran—one that accounts for the roots of the radicals and modernists as well as subgroups within those factions—is warranted and will be offered in the following analysis.

Despite clear indications that the continued political viability of the modernists benefits U. S. interests directly, the Bush administration's hardline posture toward Iran since 2002 has helped to erode the ability of the modernists to argue for transparency and moderation in Iran's foreign and domestic policies. Inflammatory U. S. actions in recent years, such as the notorious "axis of evil" accusation during Bush's 2003 State of the Union address, have provided the radical Islamists with a powerful political weapon to use against their modernist rivals. By increasing its pressure on Iran to the point where all factions of the Iranian regime perceive an immediate national security threat, the Bush administration has facilitated the reversal of the fortunes of the modernists [End Page 159] and the seizing of the political initiative—and Iran's foreign policy—by the very radical Islamists it seeks to sideline.

U. S.-Iranian relations today are not unlike the proverbial elephant in the room. Most aspects of U. S. interests in Southwest Asia are affected by it, but the question has been effectively ignored by the Bush administration. Addressing the U. S.-Iranian relationship to more effectively achieve post-9/11 U. S. foreign policy goals is a process that transcends the trite framework of containing Iranian radicals or engaging Iranian reformers. Rather, it requires the development of a coherent conceptual and strategic framework by U. S. policymakers upon which to base any future interaction with Iran. For policymakers and interested observers, this implies a sustained effort to appreciate the historical importance of Iran's ongoing political evolution and its consequences for Iranian foreign policy and U. S. interests in Southwest Asia.This article will seek to shed light upon the connections between these dimensions by tracing the foundations and evolution of Iran's internal political dynamics along with the impact and outcomes of the Bush administration's policy regarding Iran since 9/11.

Islamism and the Iranian Context

Since the late 1960s, Islamism has presented a growing challenge to the legitimacy of Western models of modernization and secularization. The intellectual foundations of the most extreme aspects of the Islamist movement are based on the work of prominent Islamic scholars such as Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (1902-1989), Sayyid Qutb (1906-1966), and Mawlana Mawdudi (1903-1979), among others, who concluded that an Islamic social order needs to stand in direct opposition to modern secularism in order to grow and flourish. The ideological and intellectual foundation for modern radical Islamism is therefore an uncompromisingly suspicious and hostile perspective regarding the nature of the relationship between an Islamic society and the West. This common thread binds all radical Islamist groups today, including the radicals within the ruling Iranian clergy.

Islamism and the Iranian Clergy

A first step toward transcending the simplistic "conservative-reformer" explanation of Iranian politics and developing a more comprehensive understanding of Islamism in Iran is understanding the phenomenon of Islamism and different types of Islamists. Using the scholarship of William Shepard, we can distinguish between three types of Islamists, or groups that view Islam as an ideology that puts forth a political agenda and act to implement that agenda. These include traditionalist Islamists, modernist Islamists, and radical Islamists.³ Each type of Islamist also contains a range of subgroups and tendencies as well. In Iran, the radical Islamists that took power after 1979 included three such subgroups (leftists, pragmatists, and conservatives). Thus, post-revolutionary Iranian politics have been dominated by the interaction of these three subgroups of radical Islamists—one of which (the leftists) ultimately evolved to the point of abandoning radical Islamist ideology in the 1990s and adopting a modernist Islamist ideological perspective instead. This shift may appear to be a minor point, but in fact has had important implications for Iranian politics and foreign policy, and is a salient element in the regional interests of the U. S.

Unlike secular ideologies, which avoid the mixing of politics and religion, radical, modernist, and traditionalist Islamists view Islam as a guide to public life; yet they differ in the manner in which Islamist political ideology should be implemented in society. Islamists are thus deeply divided along two cleavages. These include conflicting orientations regarding modernity and "Islamic totalism." Shepard defines the former as placing a high value upon modern material technology, using modern methods of social organization and mobilization, accepting modern political institutions such as parliaments and parties, and a having positive orientation toward change and the notion of progress. He defines the latter as the tendency to view Islam as an inherently all-encompassing, total way of life with specific guidance for the political, economic and social realms.⁴ The upshot is that not all Islamists reject modernity or view Islam as a comprehensive ideology that must dominate all aspects of society. Of the three Islamist types, the radical Islamists are the most committed to the notion of Islamic totalism while simultaneously (and perhaps surprisingly) being more open to modernism and mass-based political action to achieve their goals. Radical Islamists seek to apply their interpretation ofShari'a law and Islamic principles to all aspects of social life as extensively as possible, and by all means possible—including employing violence and terrorism. Traditionalist Islamists, by contrast, are inclined to avoid modern forms and modes of political engagement and prefer to emphasize the historical role of Islam in society: mosque-based, scholarly, private and somewhat aloof from the ebb and flow of daily politics. Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani in Iraq is a prominent example of this school of thought today. Modernist Islamists advocate the flexible interpretation of Islamic principles in order to accommodate changes wrought by modern forms of social interaction and technology. They reject the traditionalists' avoidance of overt political involvement and as well as the radicals' goal of imposing a strict Islamist order by all means necessary. Modernists [End Page 160] view Islam as possessing a natural flexibility in the public sphere that can be used "...to interpret Islam in terms congruent with, or at least in very positive dialogue with, one or more Western ideologies."⁵

These different approaches to the role of Islam in politics and society are based on enduring distinctions, yet are often ignored or glossed over by Western analysts and observers. Nevertheless, these ideological differences largely dictate the political agendas advocated by various Islamist groups—including the modernists and radicals in Iran today. Despite the fact that the political factions within the Iranian regime have common roots in the radical Islamist movement that led the 1979 revolution, crucial ideological differences have emerged over time. The Iranian politicians viewed as "reformists" today are themselves former radical Islamists who have changed to be broadly reflective of the modernist Islamist impulse. The politicians who are viewed as "conservatives" remain unreconstructed radical Islamists. The traditionalists never adhered to radical Islamism and represent the vast majority of the Iranian clergy that have largely remained outside government since 1979; they are concerned with the loss of status for the clergy in Iran due to the politicization of a small number of their peers.

The modernist Islamist vision for the future of Iran and Islam stands as a stark alternative to radical Islamism. Modernist Islamist philosophers such as Abdolkarim Soroush in Iran pose two central points that represent breakthroughs in the world of Shi'a Islamic thought and also converge directly with U. S. interests and policies.⁶The first point is that while Islamic principles are immutable, the human interpretation of them can and should change through time. There can therefore be no monopolistic interpretation of Islam—a claim that strikes at the very core of radical Islamism. The second point is that a truly religious state is one that must be democratic, and "to be a religious man necessitates being a democratic man as well."⁷ The importance of this assertion should not be underestimated, for it represents the indigenous Islamic articulation of a political doctrine that requires democracy as a necessary feature of modern society.

It is important to note that Iran's ongoing experiment in combining theocracy and democracy since 1979 is one that is not easily replicated outside Iran. Iran is a non-Arab, Shi'a country; in a region that is otherwise overwhelmingly Sunni, more than ninety per cent of its population of sixty-eight million subscribe to this minority branch of Islam.⁸ In addition, unlike the experience of most Sunni-dominated polities, Iran's political history has been shaped by the Shi'a belief that legitimate political and religious authority can only be interpreted by qualified mojtaheds (Shi'a scholars) who are located outside the state. Shi'a believers are thus guided by a small number of Grand Ayatollahs who sit at the apex of the clerical hierarchy, the most prominent of whom is the marja-e taqlid-e motlaq (Ultimate Source of Emulation).⁹ Sunni Islam has no such hierarchy or tradition. As a result, in Iranian history the ulama (clergy) have been exceptionally active in the political arena, but, with the notable exception of the revolution, the clergy has never directly assumed power.¹⁰ Following the overthrow of the Pahlavi dynasty in 1979, the most politicized elements of the clergy emerged at the pinnacle of power in the new Islamic Republic of Iran. The unprecedented capturing of the state was spearheaded by a very small number of clerics who believed in the radical Islamist vision of Ayatollah Khomeini—even today, it is estimated that no more than three per cent of the estimated 200,000 ulama in Iran are such "regime clerics."

Islamism and Politics in Iran After 1979

From its inception, public participation and popular will have been important sources of legitimacy for the Islamic Republic. Iran's post-1979 political system features the full range of modern political institutions, including a regularly elected President and Majles (Parliament).¹¹ However, based upon Khomeini's doctrine of radical Islamism, the Islamic Republic system has enshrined the notion of the velayat-e-faqih (rule of the Islamic jurisprudent) where a single cleric serves as the religious and political leader. The system features a powerful set of Islamic oversight mechanisms as well; institutions such as the Assembly of Experts, Council of Guardians and the Supreme Leadership (Rahbar-e Enqelab) were created with veto power over the representative institutions. Ayatollah Khomeini served as the Rahbar—a position combining ultimate religious and political leadership— until his death in 1989.

The Islamic Republic has faced significant internal tensions in its short history due to this hybrid religious-democratic arrangement. In spite of external threats such as the hostile relationship with the U. S., Iraq's invasion of Iran in September 1980, and the war in neighboring Afghanistan, the most dangerous long-term challenge to the system's legitimacy and survival has come from within the clerical establishment itself—primarily from the internal fracturing of the ruling radical Islamists into competing factions, but from the opposition of traditionalist clerics outside government as well.

Factionalism in the Post-Khomeini Era

According to one contemporary observer of Iranian affairs,

The unchallenged authority and charisma of Ayatollah [End Page 161] Ruhollah Khomeini obscured the regime's underlying contradictions.... The divisions within the clerical community, where many traditionalist clerics had long viewed actual assumption of temporal power as inconsistent with Shiite theology, went unaired. ... The death of the founder of the Islamic Republic eroded the fragile political consensus and deprived the clerical establishment of its charismatic leader and its institutional coherence.¹²

Even prior to Khomeini's death, intense factionalism was evident among Iran's radical Islamist elite and had driven two notable events. The first was the dissolution of the Islamic Republican Party (IRP) in 1987—formed in 1979 to serve as a unifying political organization for the radical Islamist revolutionary cadres and leadership. The second event was the extra-constitutional creation of the Expediency Council in 1988 to break the legislative gridlock that had emerged between the Majles and the Council of Guardians, which were dominated by opposing factions.¹³ The Expediency Council has since become one of the most powerful political institutions in Iran.

In the 1980s the radical Islamist elite began to fracture into pronounced leftist, pragmatist, and conservative factions as subgroups began to speak to competing constituencies, differ on policy issues, and develop conflicting perspectives on religion's role in society.¹⁴ The leftists dominated the Majles in the 1980s. They advocated statist economic policies broadly informed by a blend of Marxism and notions of social justice, fiercely opposed the restoration of ties with the U. S., and were staunch disciples of Ayatollah Khomeini's radical ideology as well as his concept of the velayat-e faqih. The conservatives favored laissez-faire economic policies and a less dogmatic and revolutionary foreign policy, but were more extreme in terms of their adherence to the application of Islam to the social and cultural realms. Their loyalty to Khomeini's system of the velayat-e faqih was less pronounced than that of the leftists, and they were more closely aligned with the traditionalist clergy that opposed the faqih system. The pragmatists formed the buffer faction; they emphasized a pro-business approach to economic reconstruction after the devastating 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War and the easing of social and cultural restrictions mandated by radical Islamism.

The core post-Khomeini crisis of legitimacy of the Islamic Republic is born of the fundamental contradictions between unelected theocratic rule, the historical tradition of the Iranian Shi'a clergy's opposition to the state, and constitutionally-based republicanism. The concept of the velayat-e faqih is derided and unpopular among the traditionalist clergy in Iran. Virtually all other Grand Ayatollahs—most of whom possessed religious credentials superior to those of Khomeini—publicly opposed Khomeini's doctrine after the 1979 revolution. Most were treated harshly.¹⁵

Given such opposition, Khomeini's supporters engineered a series of constitutional amendments in the months before his death. One outcome was the separation of the religious and political leadership functions so that the Rahbar no longer had to be a religious scholar of unquestionable qualifications. This change allowed for the selection of then-President Ali Khamenei as Khomeini's successor while sidestepping the vociferous protests of the traditionalist clergy. The succession was a rapid process that surprised outside observers, who largely expected a drawn-out crisis to take place. However, the pre-eminent position of religious authority in the Shi'a world, the marja-e taqlid-e motlaq, remains unoccupied. Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the traditionalist Iranian-born cleric who resides in Najaf, Iraq, is the closest candidate today.¹⁶

The process of replacing Khomeini reflected a grand bargain struck between two factions of the radical Islamists—the conservatives and pragmatists—at the expense of the third faction, the leftists. While the conservatives consolidated their control over key unelected political institutions, the pragmatists (led by MajlesSpeaker Hojjatolislam Ali Akbar Rafsanjani) emerged as a popular political force. The conservative-pragmatist alliance subsequently ended the control of the leftists over the Majles by using the Council of Guardians to prevent leftist candidates from running in the 1992 parliamentary elections. The 1989-1992 period therefore marked the definitive fracturing of the radical Islamist elite in Iran. Khamenei became the new Rahbar; Rafsanjani was subsequently elected as president for two terms ending in 1997; the conservatives and pragmatists took control of the Majles; and the leftists were relegated to the political wilderness. However, according to Anoushiravan Ehteshami, the price of this bargain was high:

The process of succession ... has caused a serious rupture in the religious and political authority (and symbolism) of the spiritual leader of the Islamic state. Ultimately, as we have seen with Khomeini's successor, emphasizing the political at the expense of the religious has necessarily "de-Islamicized" the most religiously authoritative of offices in Ayatollah Khomeini's doctrine.¹⁷

The resulting loss of the system's religious legitimacy was exacerbated by poor management of the economy and short-sighted social policies. The 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War resulted in an estimated one million casualties and economic costs of five hundred billion to one trillion dollars. At its peak, the conflict consumed roughly two-thirds of the government's expenditures, resulting in high inflation and massive underinvestment in the [End Page 162] economy throughout the 1980s. Industries and services operated at extremely low levels of output and capacity and suffered from the lack of investment, technology, and skilled labor, as well as a bloated state bureaucracy and ineffective management.¹⁸ By 1989, Iran's economy had been stagnant for fifteen years and the cumulative effects of the war, revolution, and international isolation had dramatically eroded Iran's status as one of the world's best performing developing economies from the 1950s to 1970s. When combined with the challenges posed by Iran's growing population, these developments were immediate sources of political pressure on the radical Islamists—widely perceived to be incapable of addressing their consequences.

Modernist Islamism Emerges in Iran

Following their ejection from politics in the early 1990s, many members of the leftist faction took up positions outside government and suspended their political activities.¹⁹ As observed by Ray Takeyh,

By the early 1990s, an eclectic group of politicians, seminary leaders, religious thinkers, and intellectuals undertook an imaginative reexamination of the role of public participation in an Islamic government. An impressive array of the regime's own loyal soldiers—men who had fought for the clerical state and served in some of its highest posts—found themselves increasingly marginalized by the defenders of strict Islamic orthodoxy, and began subtly defecting from the official line.²⁰

By the mid-1990s, the left wing of the radical Islamist elite in Iran completed a remarkable metamorphosis that transformed them from radical Islamists to modernist Islamists. Influenced by the philosophy of Abdolkarim Soroush, they adopted the perspective that the influence of popular will in the governance structures of the Islamic Republic had to be strengthened to preserve the system. The leftist/modernists thus tapped into deepening public dissatisfaction by stressing the indispensability of the rights and will of the people as well as the rule of law, civil society, and pluralism.²¹

In the meantime, the conservative-pragmatist coalition was unraveling over differences on economic and cultural policy. In early 1996, supporters of President Rafsanjani formed a new political party, the Kargozaran-e Sazandegi (Executives of Construction), and continued to emphasize economic issues at the expense of radical Islamist ideology.²² In the 1996 parliamentary elections, the conservatives unexpectedly lost their majority, and fifty-three per cent of the new MPs declared their support for Rafsanjani and the pragmatists.²³ An even greater surprise occurred during the 1997 presidential elections. In February 1997 the Kargozaran threw their support behind Mohammad Khatami, a former cabinet minister in the 1980s and member of the nascent modernist faction. Khatami's platform reflected a modernist Islamist agenda, which appealed to a wide range of electoral constituencies whose political clout and dissatisfaction was growing—especially among the youth and women.²⁴

Iran's population had exploded in the 1980s due to a 3.8 per cent annual growth rate—increasing from 33.7 million in 1976 to 49.4 million in 1986—further exacerbating economic difficulties. While the growth rate has been reduced to 1.6 per cent today, by the mid-1990s the government could not create enough jobs to absorb the 700,000-800,000 young Iranians entering the job market each year.²⁵ As a result, large numbers ofyoung Iranians were emigrating to the West annually, reaching 200,000 in the late 1990s.²⁶ The sheer size of the baby boom generation, the simultaneous emergence of a robust women's rights movement, and the political demands of both groups are now enduring political realities in Iran. Recent polls show that eighty-four per cent of university students disagree with the direction of the clerical state and only five to six per cent of students watch or read religious materials.²⁷ Women currently comprise over half of all college students (as compared with twelve per cent in 1978), are involved at the highest levels of government, and have successfully pushed for the restoration of their civil rights in key areas in the 1990s.²⁸ The 1997 elections allowed women and youth to express their political preferences in a manner unprecedented in the Islamic Republic's short history, propelling the modernists and Khatami to an unanticipated landslide victory.

The election results marked the beginning of a new phase in post-Khomeini Iranian politics. Khatami received twenty million votes—or sixty-nine per cent—in a race with eighty-eight per cent voter turnout. The new Khatami administration quickly encouraged an expansion of media outlets, civic organizations, and political parties, and the modernists themselves formed a new political party, the Jebhey-e Mosharekat-e Iran-e Eslami (Islamic Iran Participation Front, or IIPF).²⁹ The IIPF then entered into a broader alliance with the Kargozaran, student, and labor groups to create the"Second of Khordad Front." However, compromises were also made between the Front and the radical Islamists—resulting in Khamenei's acceptance of Khatami's election and the modernists' decision to accept the continuing domination of the Council of Guardians and the Assembly of Experts by the radicals.³⁰ In 1999, the Khatami administration implemented a dormant clause of the constitution establishing elected municipal government; the IIPF swept those elections as well, receiving eighty per cent of the vote. Overnight, the number of elected officials in Iran increased from 400 to 200,000 and the [End Page 163] modernists eclipsed the Kargozaran as the most popular political party in Iran.

Election results aside, the radical Islamists still held sway over powerful bodies such as the Council of Guardians, Assembly of Experts, and the judiciary—including in little-known courts such as the Press Court and the Special Court for the Clergy. Through the Rahbar, they controlled an interlocking network of wealthy quasi-governmental foundations, patronage ties, and shadowy links to the security services and thuggish pressure groups such as the Ansar-e Hezbollah and Basijthat were used to intimidate and physically harass political opponents. All of these tools were employed in a concerted campaign to reassert their control, beginning with the imprisonment of two key allies of President Khatami on trumped-up charges in June and July 1998.³¹ That winter several dissident writers and secular politicians were brutally murdered, and the crimes were traced by the Iranian media to the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) and radical Islamist politicians.³²

Popular sentiment against radical Islamism continued to grow in Iran during the late 1990s, and the modernists gathered greater momentum in the next two major political contests. The elections for the Sixth Majles (2000-2004) were held in February 2000, and of the 6,800 candidates only eleven per cent were disqualified by the Council of Guardians. This compared with a thirty-five per cent disqualification rate in the previous Majles elections, and indicates the extent to which the radicals were unaware of their own unpopularity or the changes within their former leftist colleagues.³³ The IIPF and its allies won a dominant majority of 220 out of 290 seats, with record voter turnout of eighty-three per cent.³⁴ In 2001, President Khatami easily won reelection against weak opposition from the radical Islamists, and received seventy-seven per cent of the vote.³⁵

These additional, humiliating defeats sparked a strong response from the embattled radicals through the judiciary. Since April 2000, dozens of journalists have been imprisoned and more than one hundred pro-modernist newspapers and magazines have been closed down by the Press Court.³⁶ IIPF MPs have been personally targeted as well, despite the parliamentary immunity provided them in the constitution. During the winter of 2001, three MPs were imprisoned or convicted on charges of criticizing or defaming the courts and in February 2002 sixty others were summoned to answer charges of "corruption." In addition to this campaign of harassment and intimidation, the radicals have effectively employed their domination of the Council of Guardians and the Expediency Council to thwart pending modernist legislation on reforms to the Press Law, fiscal policy, the constitution, gender and civil rights, and the penal code.

By 2004, the inability of the modernists to act on their electoral mandates in the face of resolute opposition by the radicals had a pronounced political effect, with public support for the modernists declining noticeably from its peak.³⁷ Sensing this trend, and feeling increasingly insecure due to a combination of their own domestic unpopularity and the Bush administration's growing belligerence, the radicals escalated their efforts to further roll back the modernist gains. During the February 2004 elections for the Seventh Majles (2004-2008) over 2,500 out of 7,700 candidates (mostly from the IIPF) were deemed unfit to stand as candidates by the Council of Guardians. This was four times the number disqualified in the 2000 elections, and remarkably included eighty sitting modernist MPs. The IIPF reacted vehemently but ultimately ineffectively, and the Khatami administration had little choice but to carry out the elections. Not having done so would likely have spurred the radicals to declare a state of emergency, under the guise of national security imperatives, and use the armed forces to seize control of the government—precipitating an unprecedented constitutional and political crisis.

Given the Bush administration's escalation of pressure on Iran in 2002-2003, such a scenario was viewed by the radicals and members of all factions (including the modernists) who wanted the post-1979 regime to continue, as a direct threat to the regime's survival. As a result, despite vociferous domestic and international criticism, the radicals' determination to see the flawed election through remained firm. The final election results confirmed expectations: the radicals controlled 190 seats in the new Majles and the modernists fifty seats, with the remainder forming a swing bloc of unaffiliated MPs.³⁸ Voter turnout was a record low fifty-one per cent, down from eighty-three per cent four years earlier.³⁹

It is likely that the radicals will seek to determine the outcome of the 2005 presidential election in the same manner. However, fundamental social changes in Iran—rooted in the continuing demographic boom (the population is expected to surpass eighty million by 2015) and the public's demands for greater democratization and less radical Islamism in government—are gradually but inexorably shifting the political ground. These changes have affected the frame of reference employed by the radicals themselves, elements of which have responded to their string of resounding electoral defeats in the 1990s by advocating the revamping of their rigid Islamist ideology in order to avoid eventual political oblivion.⁴⁰ For example, the Speaker of the new Seventh Majles will be a non-cleric—a first since [End Page 164] 1979—and was nominated by the radicals. In this sense, the demands of the public and emergence of the modernist movement have forced a paradigm shift in Iranian politics.

The Foreign Policy Impact of the Modernists

From 1997—2004 the modernists were the dominant political faction in Iran due to their willingness to voice the demands of Iranian voters for a less restrictive social and political environment, improved economic opportunity, greater integration with the outside world, and the normalization of Iran's international relations. The realm of foreign policy is one where the contrast between the two factions—i.e., the "Dialogue Among Civilizations" as advanced by President Khatami versus the fierce opposition of the radical Islamists to improved relations with the U. S., or "Great Satan"—could not be starker. In a recent review of Iranian factional politics, Hossein Seifzadeh characterizes the modernist approach to foreign policy in this manner:

Reformists also view foreign policy as a means of reducing pressures on Iran and the Islamic regime within.... It is hoped that through détente, reducing tensions and conflicts, dialogue among civilizations, coalitions for peace, and political deterrence, it is possible for Iran to increase access to international resources, investments, and markets... [the] reformist doctrine of foreign policy emphasizes the enhancement of human dignity, welfare, and global interdependence.⁴¹

President Khatami's foreign policy thus rejects the notion of the clash of civilizations, believes in the interdependence of societies, advocates a proactive approach, and has yielded significant successes.⁴² Relations have improved with all major European states since 1997, and Iran has helped to create a more harmonious regional environment by significantly improving its ties with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, and other Arab states.

Notable progress was made in U. S.-Iranian relations as well. In January 1998 President Khatami gave an unprecedented interview on CNN in which he expressed regret for the 1979 U. S. embassy seizure and hostage crisis and called for a "crack in the wall of mistrust" between the two governments.⁴³ Secretary of State Albright reciprocated in a June 1998 speech, stating a U. S. willingness to seek a genuine reconciliation with Iran and remove the mutual hostility that the Clinton administration viewed as "not insurmountable."⁴⁴ These comments initiated the increased exchange of athletes and academics, a marked lowering of hostile rhetoric, and the eventual lifting of some trade sanctions on Iran by the United States in 2000. The radical Islamists and Khamenei have continually vetoed the normalization of relations with the U. S. since 1997, but in doing so were once again out of step with most Iranians. A 2002 poll of Tehran residents showed that seventy-four per cent favored talks with the United States, and seventy-nine per cent supported a dialogue even in the absence of formal relations.⁴⁵ However, the Bush administration has evinced little interest in continuing a comprehensive dialogue with Iran and has instead exerted strong unilateral pressure after 9/11—thus directly undermining the modernist's argument that normal relations with the U. S. would not harm Iran's interests.

-Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 24.1 (2004) 159-172

found on http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/comparative_studies_of_south_asia_africa_and_the_middle_east/v024/24.1rajaee.html