In November 2001, two months after the devastating 9/11 attacks, Iranian President Mohammad Khatami visited New York for a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly. He had, three years earlier at the same venue, delivered a landmark speech calling for a “Dialogue among Civilizations” among the world’s nations and peoples. It was a reaction to both Samuel Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations” thesis and the dominant “realist” framework of international relations theory which posits a Hobbesian struggle for supremacy based on “national interests” between states. The UN, inspired by Khatami’s speech, responded by declaring 2001 the “UN Year of Dialogue among Civilizations.” It was thus a cruel irony that 2001 was the year that the world plunged into renewed conflict, the reverberations of which are still playing out across the globe.
It was here in New York that I met Khatami during the General Assembly session.[1] On the occasion of his visit, Khatami had invited around 20 leading Muslim scholars from America, including myself, for dinner. I was seated immediately on Khatami’s right. He spoke of his philosophy which leaned heavily on scholarship, understanding, and building bridges between different communities. He carried himself with dignity and spoke softly but with authority. I presented him my book Living Islam which I told him carried the same themes.
Some other dinner guests also made an impact, and I watched the interaction closely to see what it revealed about Khatami’s philosophy, particularly towards the United States and the West. The guests were complaining that they were being suppressed in the United States—“we are being victimized,” they said—and they pleaded to Khatami for help. Khatami could easily have taken the longstanding line of the Iranian leadership that the US was the “Great Satan” and encouraged the guests along these lines. But he said firmly, no. He told them this was not the forum and place for such a discussion and that he as a foreign leader would not comment or get involved in American politics. I’m sure your local authorities in the US will be able to deal with the problem, he added. This comparatively minor interaction suggested to me Khatami’s sincerity in seeking improved, normal, and correct relations between the US and Iran which had experienced an utter breakdown since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
In his interview[2] with a US newspaper during this session, his first since assuming the presidency in 1997, Khatami struck a similar tone. Addressing both America and the world, he said that the “dialogue” must continue—indeed it was now even more important. The perpetrators of 9/11, he said, were a “cult of fanatics who had self-mutilated their ears and tongues, and could only communicate with perceived opponents through carnage and devastation,” the polar opposite of dialogue. He expressed his wish, that “God willing, as God has wanted for us, all of us, Christians[,] Jews, Muslims, everyone, can interpret religion in a free manner based on wisdom and foresight to protect our religion as well as to provide peace for our region.” And he asserted, “we must strongly prevent a clash among civilizations and religions and the spread of hatred.” Khatami even suggested that Iran might be willing to recognise the State of Israel, providing the Palestinians reached a peace agreement with Israel.
A few years later, my distinguished colleague Brian Forst and I compiled an edited volume, After Terror: Promoting Dialogue Among Civilizations. We invited leading thinkers to utilise and develop Khatami’s framework to reflect on how they believed the world could move towards this paradigm. Among those who contributed were Kofi Annan, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Lord Carey and Prince Hassan bin Talal of Jordan. We also reached out to Khatami to contribute a piece. To my delight, he agreed and sent a powerful essay. In it, Khatami discussed ways to bring “the hearts of people closer together” across the world, and the importance of tolerance, listening, and scholarship and knowledge in the task of dialogue. He also stated that despite all the challenges to the dialogue paradigm, he was cheered by the fact that so many people around the world had adopted and promoted it: “The fact that this proposal was welcomed by the international community, and specifically lauded at the United Nations General Assembly by the collective of its member states, as well as by intellectuals and world public opinion, is itself important and valuable.”[3] Jimmy Carter provided us a blurb for the cover of the book: “I strongly recommend it.”
In 2006, a year after Khatami’s essay was published in After Terror, we made another connection with him. We were in Amman, Jordan conducting fieldwork for our study Journey into Islam, the first in a quartet of studies we produced on the relationship between Islam and the West published by Brookings Institution Press. I had just spoken at the Royal Institute for Interfaith Studies, an organisation established under the patronage of Prince Hassan of Jordan, the uncle of King Abdullah. After the event, the Pakistani ambassador to Jordan hosted a dinner for us at an elegant upscale restaurant. Joining us were diplomats, cabinet officials, and others from Pakistan, Jordan, and other countries. At the table next to us sat Ayad Allawi, Iraq’s former prime minister. The atmosphere was tense as sectarian violence had just exploded in Iraq and the Danish cartoons of the Prophet of Islam were provoking mass protests.
As Frankie Martin recounts, “I struck up a conversation with a gentleman sitting next to me, who said he was from Iran. I voiced my respect and appreciation for President Khatami, who had recently left office, for launching the Dialogue among Civilizations initiative. In particular, the major speech that Khatami had given on the subject at the United Nations. I told him that I was finding that our fieldwork validated the president’s speech. Muslims I had met were upset at the conflicts and political problems plaguing their societies. But what seemed to be concerning them the most was the perception that Americans and Westerners hated them for simply being Muslim and were attacking their religion, a view reinforced by the media. The idea of a Dialogue among Civilizations, I said, was needed now more than ever, particularly because many Americans and Westerners have similar ideas about Muslims. A huge smile crossed the man’s face. ‘It is so wonderful to hear you say that. I am on President Khatami’s personal staff. I helped write that speech. And I agree.’”
Mohammad Khatami’s presidency marked a cultural awakening, pitting progressive youth and intellectuals against entrenched militant forces
Khatami is a crucially important international statesman and scholar. He is significant on multiple levels. For Iran, he is more than a president—he is the spiritual, ideological, and symbolic architect and leader of the reform movement, which has been striving for decades for a more open and tolerant Iran which is accountable to its people, accepting of minorities, and seeking good relations with the world, including the West. Then, for the world, Khatami offers ways of interpreting national identity for the world’s nations which incorporate the different cultural and religious influences which shape those nations. Khatami also offers a model for reconciling reason, philosophy, scientific advancement, and modernity with religion, revelation, and tradition, and for encountering one another in mutually beneficial interactions which allow us all to explore and get closer to truth. Khatami is a big picture thinker who offered his bold vision of dialogue as being the potential cornerstone of the post-Cold War world order. Despite the challenges of the global developments post-2001, it remains a vital paradigm for creating a better world. At the UN, Khatami’s vision has been institutionalised in its Alliance of Civilizations initiative.
For us, the authors, Khatami is also a great “Mingler,” or a person who embraces the “Other” regardless of religion, race, ethnicity, tribe, or nation. In this article, we will discuss those aspects of Khatami’s thought relevant to the “Other” which we may learn from. He has much wise counsel for a world in the throes of violence pitting people of different religions, races, ethnicities, tribes, and nations against each other—and in no region more so than in his own, Iran and the Middle East.
During this period in which the entire Middle East threatens to spiral even further into the madness of war, even including discussions of the possibility of nuclear strikes, we must pull back from the brink. Khatami presents a way for us to do so. His example is also crucial because Iran continues to be stereotyped in the United States and globally as a nation of fanatics and terrorists—Khatami and his reform movement are simply erased from existence. His position is very important for us to consider amid this seemingly unending cycle of violence.
For a statesman and thinker of his stature and significance, Khatami is not nearly as well-known internationally as he should be. In this piece, after introducing Khatami in his own Iranian context, we will move on to discuss his relevance for our world, chiefly his approach to different cultures and religions and human coexistence. Let us meet Khatami so we may benefit from his thinking on moving the Middle East and the world away from clash and conflict and towards coexistence and meeting one another with curiosity, empathy, love, and respect.
The Life of Khatami
Mohammad Khatami was born in 1943, in Ardakan, in the Yazd province in central Iran. His father was one of Iran’s most beloved religious leaders, Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khatami, and his mother the daughter of a wealthy landowner.[4] Khatami’s father was highly respected for his piety and was open-minded, encouraging his children to read novels, poetry, and newspapers, and listen to radio news broadcasts.[5] Early in life, we can already see Khatami’s longstanding educational interests developing which spanned religious studies and philosophy. In 1961, at the age of 19, he entered the Theology School at Qom, the scholarly centre of Shia Islam, where he became a disciple of Ayatollah Khomeini and a close friend of Khomeini’s son. Khatami went on in 1965 to study for a bachelor’s degree in philosophy at the University of Isfahan, a secular university, which was a relatively rare practice among Shia clergy.[6] While some clerics avoided military service, Khatami served his mandatory two-year service, attaining the rank of junior lieutenant in the army of the Shah of Iran.
Khatami returned to Qom where he studied ijtihad or religious interpretation, then received a master’s degree in education from the University of Tehran before again studying in Qom and focusing on jurisprudence, Islamic law, and philosophy.[7] In 1975 he attained the clerical designation of hojjatoleslam, and became politically active in the Islamic movement before and after the Islamic Revolution.[8] He wore a black turban, indicating descent from the Prophet of Islam. In 1978, he moved to Hamburg, Germany to head the Hamburg Islamic Center, “one of the oldest and the most influential Iranian Shi’i centers in Europe,”[9] and remained until 1980, when he returned to Iran. He was elected to the Majles or Iranian parliament representing his home area of Ardakan, and he briefly headed the influential Kayhan newspaper, appointed by Ayatollah Khomeini, before becoming Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance in 1982. During the Iran-Iraq War, Khatami served as head of the Joint Command of the Armed Forces and chairman of War Propaganda Headquarters.[10]
By 1987, eight years into the Islamic revolutionary regime in Iran, Khatami was already moving towards promoting reform of the system. While serving as Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance in the years following Khomeini’s death in 1989, for example, Khatami increased the number of licenses given to periodicals from just over 100 to well over 300.[11] As such, he provoked the opposition of conservative clerics, a pattern and dynamic which would persist for the entirety of Khatami’s career. In 1992, under increasing pressure from conservative forces, Khatami chose to resign his position as Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance.[12] He went on to serve as head of Iran’s National Library and advisor to Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, and he also lectured in political theory and philosophy at Tarbiat Modares University.
There was an increasing crackdown on those promoting reform during this time, and by 1994 hundreds of intellectuals and dissidents had been imprisoned, and some executed.[13] For Khatami this period was one of intellectual refuge. He used the opportunity of being out of high government office to devote himself to religious and philosophical studies, particularly focusing on the intellectual traditions of Islam and the West. He wrote several books on these themes including From the World of the City to World-City: A Study of Political Thought in the West; Fear of the Wave, and Religion and Thought in the Snare of Autocracy: A Study in the Political Thought of Muslims during the Ascent and Descent of Islamic Civilization.[14]
By the time Khatami reemerged in 1997 to run for Iran’s presidency, he had a fully formed political platform backed by big ideas. The future of Iran, the Islamic world, and the world generally, he argued, should be shaped by dialogue between those representing different cultural and religious identities. The core of this quest is the concept of liberty, especially liberty in thought, and Khatami affirmed, “The history of humankind is the history of liberty.”[15] Khatami believed that people should have the freedom to express themselves and interact with each other, in the context of society’s agreed upon limitations. With freedom, humanity can move closer to its natural state, when people are “liberated from imposed constraints of exploitation and social enslavement as well as from unrefined animal instincts as violence and savagery.”[16] In the context of contemporary Iranian society, this meant a conceptual shift away from the power of the ruling clerical establishment and towards the people. It was a belief that democracy must be established in the context of Iran’s Islamic Republic,[17] and “the fate of religion in Iran depends on the ability to render it compatible with freedom.”[18] What applied to Iranians also applied to humanity, Khatami believed, and he contended, “if humanity is looking for happiness, it should combine religious spirituality with the virtues of liberty.”[19]
Khatami was adamant that Islam and democracy were compatible. Discussing this subject, Khatami affirmed that it is “possible for a government whilst attributed (motnaseb) to God” to “also be based on the vote of the people. I am convinced that we have started a new experience, in other words a holy government (hokumat-e-elahi) which is the people’s and is named Islamic Republic.”[20]
Khatami’s Vision: The Ideal of Medina
For Khatami, the Islamic Revolution was an ongoing process, not a settled matter. Simply instituting religious dogma as official state ideology, Khatami argued, is not a true Islamic Republic. He identified a tendency among some to retreat to rigid dogmatic positions and justify these based on living in an “Islamic Republic,” but such thinking was detrimental, Khatami insisted. He invoked Ayatollah Khomeini’s example, establishing Khatami’s core argument that his vision for an Islamic democracy was compatible with Khomeini’s thinking. Khatami asserted, “The effect of dogma on our society which has a religious identity is vast. And its negative effect is greater than secularism, especially because dogmatic believers usually project the aura of religious legitimacy…Imam Khomeini, especially in the last two years of his life, was deeply concerned with the danger that dogma and backward vision posed to the revolution’s path and the progress and welfare of Islamic society.”[21]
The question of how to interpret religion in the Islamic Republic of Iran also had global resonance, Khatami noted, given the lasting impact of Iran’s revolution on the Islamic world: “The Islamic revolution has spread its momentum across the Muslim world and beyond. It has given new hope to Muslims and downtrodden peoples who seek freedom and justice, hence affecting the world’s intellectual and political climate.”[22] While some assume, Khatami stated, “that since our revolution has succeeded and an Islamic Republic established, the victory of real Islam will be assured automatically,” but this is incorrect: “No, we face serious difficulties and dangers…the devotees of real Islam must equip themselves with rationality, thought, and logic more than ever before.”[23]
Like one of his central intellectual influences, Al Farabi, who lived over a thousand years ago and reconciled Greek philosophy and Islam, Khatami’s ideal society which he attempts to orient Iran towards is Medina at the time of the Prophet of Islam. Muslims should reflect on the principles of Medina, which represent the Muslim “moral geography” and “moral abode” according to Khatami, and try to implement them in the context of today’s world.[24] These include rights for women and minorities, rule of law, tolerance for multiple views, and avoiding force and coercion.[25] The goal is to achieve what Khatami calls the “Good Society” encompassing such characteristics.[26]
The ideal of Medina is especially important for Iranian and Muslim society, Khatami believed, because in the centuries after Medina, ideals of Islamic rulership, influenced by pre-Islamic monarchical and imperial systems, moved towards authoritarianism and tyranny.[27] The Prophet’s Medina, in contrast, Khatami argued, was characterised by “collective decision making, reconciliation, and the supremacy of the public interest,” a model that was sustained “to some extent by the Caliphs who succeeded him, especially by Imam Ali,”[28] but not very much longer.
Khatami laments that the advancements of Al Farabi, who Khatami asserted dedicated “deep thought to philosophy, politics, and civic discourse,”[29] were not continued by later Islamic philosophers. This led to a tendency in Muslim societies, Khatami believed, for scholars to attempt to justify autocracy.[30] The best they could do was to counsel the Sultan to treat people kindly and avoid God’s wrath or impart particular techniques to help rulers maintain power—but this still left society with unaccountable monarchs.[31] Another response was Sufism, which Khatami appreciates, but notes that it was not directly concerned with the issue of autocracy and how to overcome it in the manner considered by Al Farabi.[32]
The Islamic Republic of Iran should thus continue to develop in line with Islamic thinking consistent with the guidance of the Prophet of Islam, Medina, and the “golden age” of Islamic civilisation exemplified by Al Farabi, but in a modern context, striking its own balance between competing ideas and between Islamic, Persian, and Western influences, all of which for Khatami form important parts of the Iranian identity. It is also important for Iranians and Muslims, as indeed it is for all humans, Khatami taught, to balance reason with religion, and science and technology with humanity. While prior to Khatami’s presidency these elements had often been pitted against each other, Khatami believed not only that they could be reconciled but that they necessarily should. Indeed, Khatami was the first leading cleric in post-Revolution Iran “to acknowledge openly Iran’s pre-Islamic heritage and its role in present-day identity.”[33]
This idea of a balance or reconciliation of different streams of identity and intellectual influences set Khatami up for his approach to foreign policy and international relations—to enact a similar dialogue between civilisations on the world stage as an offering to humanity. Khatami pointed out that in history, “Islam has embraced opposing views with open arms. Seminal Muslim thinkers have actively sought the encounter of other views. This openness has imbued Islamic civilization with much intellectual weight.”[34]
Khatami’s Electoral Triumph
Going into the 1997 presidential election, few observers gave Khatami much of a chance. Many among the religious establishment and major government institutions were against him, and the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, implicitly endorsed Khatami’s rival Ali-Akbar Nateq-Nuri, a cleric and the speaker of parliament, insisting that “if anyone, out of those people who enter into the arena of the presidency shows the slightest sign of being soft toward the United States...toward the cultural and political attacks of foreigners…the nation will definitely not vote for such a person.”[35] It was reported that “Iran’s political machine had never been so blatant in its backing of a single candidate who espoused the same staunch conservative views.”[36] Nateq-Nuri accused Khatami of siding with opponents of Iran, associating with people intoxicated by the West, and sympathising with the “rap generation.”[37]
In the end, however, Khatami pulled off an astounding landslide, indicating Iran’s appetite for change. Out of 30 million votes cast, Khatami won 70 percent.[38] 80 percent of voters turned out, surpassing all records including Khomeini’s 1979 Islamic constitutional referendum.[39] Khatami’s core supporters included students, the youth, intellectuals, pro-democracy activists, human rights activists, women, ethnic minorities, the middle class, and the poor.[40] Perhaps most notably, Khatami also attracted considerable support from Iran’s religious establishment. In Qom, the centre of Shia theological study, 70 percent of voters chose Khatami.[41] Khatami’s tally among Iran’s ultraconservative Revolutionary Guard military forces was essentially the same, at 69 percent.[42] Khatami did well in nearly all provincial districts, “even in small towns and villages where citizens traditionally follow the advice of local religious leaders.”[43]
Such support reflected the esteem with which figures at the highest echelons of the establishment held Khatami.[44] Even Ayatollah Khamenei, who was commonly held to have differing philosophical views from Khatami, had close connections with him and there was more nuance in the relationship than might have appeared on the surface. Khamenei had been a devoted disciple of Khatami’s father, and the Khatami and Khamenei families vacationed together.[45]
Khatami’s victory was described as the start of a new era in the nation’s history and a second revolution.[46] Reporting on Khatami, the New York Times correspondent Elaine Sciolino observed, “he would get on a bus and kiss babies and shake hands…he had such an extraordinary personality…He charmed the people of Iran. He charmed them with his personality, with his good looks, and with his promises.”[47]
Khatami’s platform during the campaign included the assertation that the nation’s parliament “was the highest seat of national sovereignty” and that the constitution was “the basis of the…political structure.”[48] This set up a potential clash with the Supreme Leader, the clerical establishment, and those who believed that the ruling clerics should have paramount authority. And yet, as previously noted, Khatami argued that his ideas were firmly in keeping with the vision of Ayatollah Khomeini—Khatami quoted such Khomeini sayings as “Each and every member of [the] nation had the right to directly and publicly impeach and criticise. If he fails to do so, he has acted against his Islamic responsibility” and “People who are in the rank of opposition are free to express their disagreements and the high clergy of towns, and villages, and the nation itself, have the responsibility to protect such freedom.”[49]
Khatami and his followers also interpreted Khomeini’s statements on the office of Supreme Leader (vali-e-faqih) to indicate that “the vali-e-faqih’s legitimacy is temporal, and that he should be subject to democratic checks and balances,” while conservatives, also basing their arguments in Khomeini’s thought, believed the Supreme Leader to be the representative of the Twelfth Shia Imam, who will return in the End Times, and thus is “exempt from temporal accountability.”[50] Khatami stated that he believed the clergy should remain “aloof from the unwanted negative consequences of being too close to power and government, which could prevent them from their essential mission of providing spiritual and religious guidance to society.”[51] The election results indicated that a great number of Iranians believed in Khatami’s interpretation of the Islamic Revolution and Khomeini’s teachings, and his vision for the future development and course of the Islamic Republic. Khatami’s reform movement was known as Dovom-e Khordad, which took its name from the Persian calendar date on which Khatami triumphed in the election.
"Our Napoleon": Khatami in Office
Khatami assumed the presidency as the most popular man in the nation,[52] “greeted as a national hero, and treated like a rock star.”[53] An Iranian woman quoted in the media captured how many of Khatami’s supporters saw him: “our Napoleon with a book, instead of a sword, in his hand.”[54] Wherever he went, he was greeted with exuberant crowds.[55] He made a point of visiting people in ordinary locations, turning up unannounced to places such as schools, shops, food ration lines, and hospitals.[56]
In his inaugural address in August 1997, Khatami called for “the free exchange of ideas” and stated, “The government must emphasize that in our world, dialogue among civilizations is an absolute imperative. We shall avoid any course of action that may foster tension. We shall have relations with any state which respects our independence…The Islamic government is the servant of the people and not their master, and it is accountable to the nation under all circumstances.”[57] Khatami repeatedly spoke of the importance of free inquiry, for example in education, asking “Why should we not allow our young to raise their serious questions about God, the Prophet, religion, the Constitution, the Islamic Republic, the country’s domestic and foreign policy, economy, veiling, and me—a clergyman who is governing them?”[58] He further insisted, “There are no forbidden zones…one can question whether or not atom exists; or whether there is a God or not; or whether God possesses certain attributes or He does not.”[59] Intrigued international observers wondered what direction Iran would now take given that it had a president who “has written approvingly of Locke and Rousseau.”[60]
The differences in the views of identity among the nation’s leadership and the question of how Iran should engage with the world, however, were on full display at the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation conference held in Tehran in December 1997. Khatami, sticking to his theme of dialogue, “spoke of a ‘Western civilization…whose accomplishments are not few’ and of an ‘interdependent world…where the security of different regions is indivisible…[and requires] striving toward mutual trust.”[61] In contrast, Ayatollah Khamenei, who also addressed the assembly, asserted, “[t]he West, with its comprehensive invasion, has…targeted our Islamic faith…[and has] exported the…disregard for religion and ethics [that will]…engulf the present Western civilization and wipe it out.”[62] The CNN journalist Christiane Amanpour observed, “If a person from outer space had been watching the opening ceremonies of the OIC, he would have heard two completely different speeches”—with Khamenei “talking about conflict, enemies and harping on the past” and Khatami “talking about dialogue, understanding and moving forward,” and she asked, “Which is the real Iran[?]”[63]
Khatami wasted no time in beginning to implement his reforms, most notably in his inclusive political rhetoric and opening up the society to more debate. He stated, “We need organised political parties, social associations, and an independent free press to provide channels to convey to the state the people’s needs. The government must eliminate obstacles to the expansion of these channels…We have no other path except moderation and dialogue…and to people intending to use violence and harshness, even if they have good intentions, we say that violence and harshness will not work. The more independent and free the press, the greater their representation of public opinion.”[64]
Khatami followed such words with action, facilitating an explosion of newspapers and periodicals[65] and clearing more political parties. A little over two years into his first term, 64 new political parties and groups were given permission to operate.[66] The “morals police” were also relaxed, and women appeared in public “with lipstick, nail polish, and more of their hair showing; and young men and women mix more freely.”[67] There was a notable change in the behaviour of government officials, and it was reported that “politicians, civil servants and bureaucrats became more mild-mannered, especially in dealing with women and young people. Haggardness and brutishness were replaced with refinement and respect.”[68]
And yet, as a political phenomenon and head of the reform movement, opinions of Khatami were sharply polarised—there were, one scholar reported, “no lukewarm opinions; people are almost invariably for or against him.”[69] Despite Khatami’s massive mandate, and possibly because of it, opposition from the conservative establishment steadily increased during his presidency. Conservative forces took every opportunity to undermine Khatami and his allies across the media, government, and the universities.[70] While Khatami freely issued press permits, for example, courts which were beyond Khatami’s influence blocked them, closing publications and arresting editors.[71] The judiciary along with the security forces “made every effort to muzzle ‘liberal’ intellectuals and clerics.”[72] Khatami complained of the effects of such forces, claiming on numerous occasions that his administration was plagued by “a crisis every nine days.”[73]
Yahya Rahim Safavi, the commander of the Revolutionary Guard, spoke in scathing terms about Khatami’s supporters, describing them as “diseased people,” and said that liberals had taken control of the nation’s universities.[74] He warned that the Revolutionary Guard “would have to ‘cut the throats and tongues’ of those who were undermining the regime”[75] and vowed to “root out counter-revolutionaries wherever they are.”[76] “Our language is that of the sword and seekers of martyrdom,” he added.[77] A high ranking cleric, Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, also spoke of violence, asserting, “They (the enemies of Islam) have presented principles such as tolerance and compromise as absolute values whilst violence is regarded as a non-value…the taboo that every act of violence is bad and every act of tolerance is good must be broken.”[78] Another senior cleric, Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi, the head of Iran’s judiciary, warned, “Some of the mass media imagine that they can do whatever they want…Our youth will not tolerate aggression against Islam.”[79] “(T)hose who go on about reformism,” Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi said, “are in fact trying to revive the traditions of apostates of 2,500 years ago in Iran’s Islamic society…Our brothers in the basiji and the police…must increase their moral, social, and cultural enforcement and carry out Islamic punishments so that the middle class gets fed up and comes to the conclusion that the reformists are incompetent.”[80]
A further senior cleric, Ayatollah Abu Al-Ghasem Hozali, speaking after a Khatami speech on political change, stated, “In this meeting Islam was slapped in the face…Chicken pox has infected the Revolution,” and he called for Khatami to admit his error.[81] Ayatollah Khamenei also alerted the reformers: “the enemy is striking Islam from home…I warn against the abuse of freedom by certain quarters of the press. Prevention of their devious acts is not difficult.”[82]
During this period, hardline vigilante groups with ties to security agencies became “increasingly active, bold, and violent, while seeming to operate with impunity.”[83] Khatami’s closest allies were targeted. The mayor of Tehran, Gholam-Hossein Karbaschi, one of Khatami’s most important political strategists and secretary general of the faction providing most of Khatami’s support in parliament, was arrested on corruption charges.[84] The cleric, newspaper publisher, and Iranian Minister of the Interior Abdollah Nouri and Ata’ollah Mohajerani, Iran’s Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance, were both beaten up by a group allegedly belonging to Ansar-i Hizbullah, a government-linked paramilitary organisation.[85] Nouri was sentenced to five years in prison for having “defamed the system,” while the Islamic scholar Mohsen Kadivar, Mohajerani’s brother-in-law, was charged with “propaganda against the sacred system of the Islamic Republic” and sentenced to over a year in prison.[86]
Another close Khatami ally, Saeed Hajjarian, commonly considered to be the reform movement’s master strategist, was shot in the face as he left City Hall in Tehran—miraculously he was not killed, but he was paralysed for a significant period and suffered serious brain damage. A member of the government’s Basij militia, which is part of the Revolutionary Guard, was convicted of his attempted murder, but only served a fraction of his sentence.[87]
Assassins did succeed in killing four progressive intellectuals, and one of their wives, however, in what became known as the “chain murders” of 1998.[88] Khatami publicly implicated Iran’s Intelligence Ministry, which acknowledged its agents were involved.[89] Other prominent reformers were additionally imprisoned—including members of parliament and reporters, lawyers representing dissidents were disbarred, and members of the Ansar-i Hizbullah paramilitary group disrupted lectures by supporters of Khatami.[90] Reform publications were attacked, and student groups targeted for suppression. During protests at the University of Tehran in 1999 opposing the shutting down of a reformist newspaper, for example, a group of 400 men wearing uniforms ransacked dormitories, set fires, and indiscriminately attacked students, damaging some 800 rooms in ten buildings. Iranian media reported that five people were killed and dozens wounded.[91] One student “reported that vigilantes had killed up to nine students both with gunfire and by throwing students out of the dormitory’s upper-story windows.”[92] Another witness described how an assailant “beat him, forced him into a car, held an empty gun to his head and, pulling the trigger, asked him, ‘Where is Mr. Khatami to help you now?’”[93]
The following year, in the span of two weeks in April, the judiciary shut down 18 out of 20 pro-reform publications,[94] with a leading cleric, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, stating, “You cannot save Islam with liberalism and tolerance. I announce clearly and openly that the closing down of these newspapers was the best thing the Judiciary has done since the Revolution.”[95] The cleric Hojatoleslam Parvazi, one of the founders of Ansar-i Hizbullah, issued a widely circulated pamphlet warning Khatami that despite his mandate, “the ‘Sons of War’ would pose a threat, presumably to reform in general, if not to Khatami himself in particular.”[96] Parvazi also stated that Ansar-i Hizbullah members had told him that “the key to the Revolution’s survival is the spread of terror and intimidation among the people.”[97] In May 2000, it was reported that Khatami was targeted for assassination by one of his own bodyguards, a member of the Revolutionary Guard. The would-be assassin had apparently approached an ayatollah for a fatwa or religious ruling justifying Khatami’s killing, but the plot fell apart when the ayatollah in question referred the man to another, more prominent ayatollah to obtain the fatwa, whose son alerted the authorities.[98]
As the crackdowns increased, there was mounting frustration among Khatami’s supporters at his inability to produce more enduring reforms.[99] Despite this, however, in the 2001 presidential elections, Khatami, with his inclusive campaign message of “Iran for all Iranians,” again emerged victorious, winning 77 percent of the vote.[100] In his second term, Khatami endeavoured to pursue more institutional changes, for example, proposing bills which aimed to remove the power of Iran’s Guardian Council to determine which candidates were permitted to run in elections, thus opening up elections to anyone who wished to run.[101] However, these reforms again met a dead end.
Khatami, the US and the "Axis of Evil"
On the foreign policy front, Khatami during this period ran into opposition from the United States and its president, George W Bush, which further strengthened domestic anti-Khatami forces and contributed to the blocking of reforms.[102]
Khatami, as discussed above, made a sincere effort to reach out to the US and improve relations with the American people. He hoped that his presidency could lead to a new era in relations between both countries. Speaking of relations between Iran and the US, Khatami said, “When we say that there exists a high wall of mistrust between us and the US, it is not a mere slogan. The Iranian people feel that Americans have dominated our destiny, at least, from 28th of Mordad 1332 (9th of August 1953) [the date of the CIA-backed coup to overthrow Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq] until now…A lot of people suffered as a result of that unpopular (Pahlavi) regime [the Shah of Iran]. We were left behind by the rest of the world.”[103]
Observing contemporary American foreign policy, Khatami interpreted it as having a continuing “cold war mentality,” oriented against a “perceived enemy.”[104] While he noted the presence of “quite a few wise and fair-minded statesmen in the United States,” he believed the country was still a “prisoner” of this mentality, despite the collapse of communism.[105] There was now what Khatami called “an attempt by certain circles to portray Islam as the new enemy, and regrettably they are targeting progressive Islam rather than certain regressive interpretations of Islam. They attack an Islam which seeks democracy, progress and development; an Islam which calls for utilization of achievements of human civilization including that of the west.”[106]
Khatami attempted to improve the relationship with the US through different measures, proposals, and initiatives. These included Khatami requesting the Iranian people stop chanting “Death to America,” with Khatami reminding Iranians on multiple occasions that “the slogan of life is always better than the wish for death.”[107] Khatami further made overtures towards the US and the West when he declared the crisis involving Salman Rushdie, who Khomeini had sentenced to death for writing his novel The Satanic Verses, “completely finished.” Khatami’s foreign minister stated that Iran did not intend to carry out the sentence and that the government disassociated itself from the bounty of $2 million placed on Rushdie’s head by an Iranian foundation.[108]
Through the framework of his “dialogue among civilizations,” Khatami said that Iran could learn from the US, especially in the area of freedom. Discussing the Puritans and Alexis de Tocqueville in a CNN interview, Khatami pointed to the fact that the US is a religious society which nonetheless has a great degree of freedom, which was the essence of Khatami’s vision for Iran. As Khatami said, in the US, “liberty found religion as a cradle for its growth, and religion found protection of liberty as its divine calling” and he affirmed, “We feel that what we seek is what the founders of American civilization were also pursuing four centuries ago.”[109] Khatami additionally expressed his “regret” at the Iranian hostage crisis, in which over fifty Americans were held by Iranian supporters of Khomeini from 1979 to 1981, stating, “I do know that the feelings of the great American people have been hurt.”[110] Khatami also spoke about his respect for Americans in history, describing President Abraham Lincoln, for example, as a “martyr,” a statement for which he was criticised by Iranian conservative hardliners.[111]
When the 9/11 attacks took place, huge crowds in Tehran held candlelight vigils for the victims and Khatami expressed his “deep sorrow and sympathy with the American people.”[112] Khatami decided to help the US in Afghanistan, hoping this would help improve relations, and contributed intelligence to the US for use against the Taliban.[113] Iran also cooperated with the US at the Bonn Conference in December 2001 which charted a post-Taliban Afghanistan. Iran played a pivotal role when it influenced its Afghan ally the Northern Alliance to back down from demanding a monopoly of seats in the Afghan interim government, and also pressed the Northern Alliance to allow Hamid Karzai to assume the Afghan presidency. Iran furthermore pledged $530 million for reconstruction in Afghanistan, “a huge sum given the state of Iran’s economy and budget.”[114]
In his State of the Union address in January 2002, however, President Bush identified Iran, Iraq, and North Korea as being part of an “Axis of Evil.” The reaction in Iran was fierce, creating more internal pressure on Khatami, and he took Bush’s inclusion of Iran in this grouping “as a rebuff to his attempts to create dialogue between Tehran and Washington and as a personal insult.”[115] Khatami kept working with the US, however, in Afghanistan,[116] and he also offered to assist the US in Iraq.[117] The Bush administration rejected Iran’s offer, however.[118] Iran’s elite, including reformists and moderates, became increasingly convinced that the US “was only after regime change and transformation of Iran into a client state.”[119]
Khatami gave a bleak assessment of the impact of Bush’s speech, explaining, “the problem of designating Iran [a member of] the axis of evil took our relations to a situation which was perhaps worse than that which existed at the beginning of the Revolution and the peak of hostilities between Iran and America.”[120] The “Axis of Evil” had a long-term impact on Iranian thinking and strategy, with Iran launching what it called its “Axis of Resistance” in response which included Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas and Islamic Jihad among the Palestinians, Shia militias in Iraq, the Syrian government headed by Bashar al-Assad, and the Houthis of Yemen.
(to be continued)
References
[1] References to “I” refer to me, Akbar Ahmed, and “we” to all three authors.
[2] Elaine Sciolino, “Iran Chief Rejects Bin Laden Message,” The New York Times, 10th of November 2001.
[3] President Seyed Mohammed Khatami, “Dialogue among Civilizations and Cultures.” In Akbar Ahmed and Brian Forst, eds., After Terror: Promoting Dialogue among Civilizations (Cambridge: Polity, 2005), pp. 73, 74, 77.
[4] Elaine Sciolino, “Mullah Who Charmed Iranians Cannot Change Status Quo,” The New York Times, 1st of February 1998.
[5] Daniel Brumberg, Reinventing Khomeini: The Struggle for Reform in Iran (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2001), p. 196.
[6] Farzin Vahdat, Islamic Ethos and the Specter of Modernity (London: Anthem Press, 2015), p. 180.
[7] Mohammad Khatami, Islam, Dialogue and Civil Society (Canberra: Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies (The Middle East & Central Asia), The Australian National University, 2000), p. 114.
[8] Vahdat, Islamic Ethos and the Specter of Modernity, p. 180.
[9] Azadeh Momeni, The Presidential Difference and Iran’s Foreign Policy under Khatami from 1997 to 2005 (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2024), p. 50.
[10] Brumberg, Reinventing Khomeini, p. 197; Vahdat, Islamic Ethos and the Specter of Modernity, p. 180.
[11] Zhand Shakibi, Khatami and Gorbachev: Politics of Change in the Islamic Republic of Iran and the USSR (London: Tauris Academic Studies, 2010), p. 148.
[12] Vahdat, Islamic Ethos and the Specter of Modernity, p. 180.
[13] Brumberg, Reinventing Khomeini, p. 186.
[14] Vahdat, Islamic Ethos and the Specter of Modernity, p. 182.
[15] Mohammad Khatami, “Statement by H.E. Mohammad Khatami, President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, before the 53rd Session of the United Nations General Assembly,” Pars Times, 21st of September 1998: https://www.parstimes.com/history/khatami_speech_un.html
[16] Mohammad Khatami, “Statement by H.E. Mohammad Khatami, President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, before the 53rd Session of the United Nations General Assembly,” Pars Times, 21st of September 1998: https://www.parstimes.com/history/khatami_speech_un.html
[17] Shakibi, Khatami and Gorbachev, p. 335.
[18] Golnar Mehran, “Khatami, Political Reform and Education in Iran,” Comparative Education, vol. 39, no. 3, 2003, p. 314.
[19] “Transcript of interview with Iranian President Mohammad Khatami,” CNN, 7th of January 1998.
[20] Shakibi, Khatami and Gorbachev, p. 304.
[21] Mohammad Khatami, Islam, Liberty, and Development (Binghamton, NY: Institute of Global Cultural Studies, Binghamton University, 1998), pp. 75-76.
[22] Khatami, Islam, Liberty, and Development, p. 97.
[23] Khatami, Islam, Liberty, and Development, p. 118.
[24] Khatami, Islam, Dialogue and Civil Society, p. 17.
[25] Khatami, Islam, Dialogue and Civil Society, pp. 17-18.
[26] Shaul Bakhash, “Iran’s Unlikely President,” The New York Review of Books, 5th of November 1998.
[27] Vahdat, Islamic Ethos and the Specter of Modernity, p. 184.
[28] Khatami, Islam, Liberty, and Development, p. 7.
[29] Khatami, Islam, Liberty, and Development, p. 8.
[30] Vahdat, Islamic Ethos and the Specter of Modernity, p. 184.
[31] Vahdat, Islamic Ethos and the Specter of Modernity, p. 184.
[32] Khatami, Islam, Liberty, and Development, p. 9.
[33] Shakibi, Khatami and Gorbachev, p. 168.
[34] Khatami, Islam, Liberty, and Development, p. 111.
[35] Brumberg, Reinventing Khomeini, p. 228.
[36] Ghoncheh Tazmini, Khatami’s Iran: The Islamic Republic and the Turbulent Path to Reform (London: Tauris Academic Studies, 2009), p. 51.
[37] Tazmini, Khatami’s Iran, p. 53.
[38] Brumberg, Reinventing Khomeini, p. 228.
[39] Jahangir Amuzegar, “Khatami’s Legacy: Dashed Hopes,” Middle East Journal, vol. 60, no. 1, 2006, p. 59.
[40] Amuzegar, “Khatami’s Legacy,” p. 60; Tazmini, Khatami’s Iran, p. 54.
[41] Tazmini, Khatami’s Iran, p. 55.
[42] Michael Eisenstadt, “The Military Dimension.” In Patrick Clawson, Michael Eisenstadt, Eliyahu Kanovsky, and David Menashri, Iran Under Khatami: A Political, Economic, and Military Assessment (Washington, DC: The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 1998), p. 73.
[43] Shaul Bakhash, “Iran’s Unlikely President,” The New York Review of Books, 5th of November 1998.
[44] Tazmini, Khatami’s Iran, p. 56.
[45] Elaine Sciolino, “Mullah Who Charmed Iranians Cannot Change Status Quo,” The New York Times, 1st of February 1998.
[46] Amuzegar, “Khatami’s Legacy,” p. 59.
[47] Tazmini, Khatami’s Iran, p. 52.
[48] Brumberg, Reinventing Khomeini, p. 1.
[49] Tazmini, Khatami’s Iran, p. 135.
[50] Christopher de Bellaigue, “The Struggle for Iran,” The New York Review of Books, 16th of December 1999.
[51] Brumberg, Reinventing Khomeini, p. 234.
[52] Elaine Sciolino, “Mullah Who Charmed Iranians Cannot Change Status Quo,” The New York Times, 1st of February 1998.
[53] Amuzegar, “Khatami’s Legacy,” p. 57.
[54] Amuzegar, “Khatami’s Legacy,” p. 57.
[55] Christopher de Bellaigue, “The Struggle for Iran,” The New York Review of Books, 16th of December 1999.
[56] Tazmini, Khatami’s Iran, p. 137.
[57] Khatami, Islam, Liberty, and Development, pp. 146, 150.
[58] Mehran, “Khatami, Political Reform and Education in Iran,” p. 323.
[59] Vahdat, Islamic Ethos and the Specter of Modernity, p. 187.
[60] Shaul Bakhash, “Iran’s Unlikely President,” The New York Review of Books, 5th of November 1998.
[61] Brumberg, Reinventing Khomeini, p. 4.
[62] Brumberg, Reinventing Khomeini, p. 4.
[63] Brumberg, Reinventing Khomeini, pp. 4-5.
[64] Shakibi, Khatami and Gorbachev, p. 233.
[65] Shakibi, Khatami and Gorbachev, p. 235.
[66] Tazmini, Khatami’s Iran, p. 74.
[67] Shaul Bakhash, “Iran’s Unlikely President,” The New York Review of Books, 5th of November 1998.
[68] Tazmini, Khatami’s Iran, p. 137.
[69] Tazmini, Khatami’s Iran, p. 151.
[70] Brumberg, Reinventing Khomeini, p. 232.
[71] Shakibi, Khatami and Gorbachev, p. 235.
[72] Brumberg, Reinventing Khomeini, p. 2.
[73] Amuzegar, “Khatami’s Legacy,” p. 60.
[74] David Menashri, “Whither Iranian Politics?: The Khatami Factor.” In Patrick Clawson, Michael Eisenstadt, Eliyahu Kanovsky, and David Menashri, Iran Under Khatami: A Political, Economic, and Military Assessment (Washington, DC: The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 1998), p. 34.
[75] Shaul Bakhash, “Iran’s Unlikely President,” The New York Review of Books, 5th of November 1998.
[76] Eisenstadt, “The Military Dimension,” p. 73.
[77] Shakibi, Khatami and Gorbachev, p. 236.
[78] Shakibi, Khatami and Gorbachev, p. 323.
[79] Shakibi, Khatami and Gorbachev, p. 236.
[80] Shakibi, Khatami and Gorbachev, pp. 326-327.
[81] Shakibi, Khatami and Gorbachev, p. 326.
[82] Shakibi, Khatami and Gorbachev, p. 236.
[83] Michael Stein and Fred S. Lafer, “Preface.” In Michael Rubin, Into the Shadows: Radical Vigilantes in Khatami’s Iran, Policy Papers no. 56. (Washington, DC: The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2001), p. ix.
[84] Shaul Bakhash, “Iran’s Unlikely President,” The New York Review of Books, 5th of November 1998.
[85] Tazmini, Khatami’s Iran, p. 108.
[86] Tazmini, Khatami’s Iran, pp. 107-108.
[87] Shakibi, Khatami and Gorbachev, p. 327.
[88] Christopher de Bellaigue, “The Struggle for Iran,” The New York Review of Books, 16th of December 1999.
[89] Tazmini, Khatami’s Iran, p. 107.
[90] Amuzegar, “Khatami’s Legacy,” p. 66.
[91] Tazmini, Khatami’s Iran, p. 109.
[92] Michael Rubin, Into the Shadows: Radical Vigilantes in Khatami’s Iran, Policy Papers no. 56. (Washington, DC: The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2001), p. 64.
[93] Rubin, Into the Shadows, p. 73.
[94] Tazmini, Khatami’s Iran, p. 110.
[95] Shakibi, Khatami and Gorbachev, p. 243.
[96] Rubin, Into the Shadows, p. 75.
[97] Rubin, Into the Shadows, pp. 75-76.
[98] Rubin, Into the Shadows, p. 108.
[99] Shakibi, Khatami and Gorbachev, p. 312.