Without a doubt the election of Mohammed Khatami had the full hearted support of the Iranian people.
However once the post election euphoria subsided, the realities of the Islamic republic became apparent. The army, security apparatus, revolutionary guards and the judiciary remained under the firm control of the Vali Faghih who answers to no one but God. As a result 4 years later, the independent press is shut down, the prisons are filled with writers, students and the so called loyal opposition who were all Khatami's backers. There have been no economic reforms, unemployment has actually become worth and corruption even within the administration is as rampant as before Khatami.

It is rather symbolic that the student movement leaders of the Office of Consolidated of Unity (Daftar e Tahkim Vahdat), who were staunch supporters of Khatami, began speaking of "transition from Khatami" to democracy (Gozar az Khatami.) in 2001 after Khatami's second election. As a result, their leaders were subsequently arrested, tortured and forced into televised cofessions and the organization was declared illegal.

In practice the Khatami presidency's main achievements can be summarized in the women's right to wear nail polish, a couple of trips by the President to Europe, an oil concession to Royal Dutch Shell and a lot of hot air.

On a theoretical level, Khatami at its best is the embodiment of the hypothesis that Islam and modernity may be compatible. Khatami's election was a test of Soroush's theory that liberal interpretations of religion may lead to an Islamic democracy.

This theory had serious flaws and religious democracy never had a chance to begin with. Protestantism saved Christianity in some parts of the world but did not lead to separation of church and state which is a prerequisite of democracy.

In other words, a liberal interpretation of religion may save Islam from extinction but for democratic institutions to flourish, religion, liberal or dogmatic, needs to be driven out of the state apparatus.
In fact, Sorush and people in his "Kian" magazine circle were the first to recognize the underlying flaw of their theory.

I had a first impression of that when Sorush the Islamic revivalist who was calling Ghazali, Mowlavi, Shariati and Khomeini his intellectual models in his earlier books came full circle in 1999 and called Mohammed Ali Foroughi's "Seyr-e Hekamt dar Europa" which is a history of western philosophy as the greatest philosophical work ever done by a contemporary Iranian.

The failure of Khomeini style fundamentalism and now Khatami's Islamic reformism to address and resolve the Iranian society's main problem of backwardness has now opened new vistas in Iranian politics. The questions which many rightfully ask are:
Supposing Islam as a form of government failed why would the Iranian people want to revert to monarchy?
Supposing that constitutional monarchy is a suitable form of government for Iran why should it be the Pahlavis again?

Who are Reza Pahlavi's constituents in or outside Iran?
I think one of the common mistakes is to confuse the Pahlavi regime with absolute oriental monarchies that we have had throughout our history in the form that they currently exist in Saudi Arabia or the Persian Gulf Sheikdoms such as the United Arab Emirates.
The oriental monarchy died in Iran when a mere commoner assassinated the Shadow of God on earth, the Pinnacle of the Universe, Nasser Eddin Shah. That famous shot in the ShahAbdolazim shrine rang the death knell of the divine right of the Sultan once and for all.
Since its inception, the Pahlavi regime was at the same time a product and promoter of Iran's embryonic modern middle class.
The men who founded and later staffed the Pahlavi regime were not aristocrats, feudal landlords or tribal leaders. They had not ridden on horses to conquer and loot new territories.

Davar, Foroughi or Taghizadeh, just to name a few, were all educated radical constitutionalists from middle class backgrounds. They constituted the cream of the crop of Iran's intelengensia. They were well versed in Persian literature and Islamic doctrine and at the same time had an intimate knowledge of western political thought and philosophy. Without an exception, these men were scrupulously honest with almost a Sufi's disdain for the trappings of power. Many of them died not even owning their homes.

They all had a purely secular agenda even though many of them such as Kasravi, Taqizadeh or Akhavi came from clerical families. As such, they had first hand experience of the degrading primitiveness, misplaced self-righteousness, nauseating bigotry, sanctimonious hypocrisy and shameless corruption of the Mollas.
These men had a vision for the modernization of Iran.
The experience of the constitutional revolution and its chaotic aftermath where Iran's existence as a sovereign nation was threatened had taught them that democracy could not flourish before economic development. In other words, first there had to be an Iran, second it had to have an economy and third people needed to be literate and then there could be meaningful elections and democracy.

In a way, they were the Iranian pioneers of the South Asian or Japanese model of modernization. They believed that to modernize and save Iran from impending disaster, they had to acquire western thoughts, philosophies and technologies.
Their patriotism was positive and oriented towards opening Iran to the world.
They painfully recognized that the traditional Persian culture that they so much loved had become too isolated and inward looking and needed updating.
After all as Dariush Shayegan says:" We had taken a vacation from human history for the last thousand years."

What transpired in Iran over the next half century is simply the implementation of that vision.
The Pahlavi regime was not a military dictatorship. The army chiefs were never devising social or economic policies. They were tools in the hands of the intellectuals.

In his memoirs, Ali Akabar Siassi, the founder and future president of Tehran University has a telling passage. He and his friends, all educated middle class intellectuals formed a political club and wrote a charter. Reza Shah heard of their activities and called Siassi for a meeting. Reza Shah asked a young intimidated Siassi rather testingly about their activities. Siassi read the charter which called for the reorganization of the army and bureaucracy, a secular judiciary, new modern schools and universities, establishment of heavy basic industries etc.

Reza Shah then smiled, congratulated him and told him:
_"You the young educated patriots make the plans and I the old soldier promise you that I will implement them. (Fekr az shoma, Kar az man)." Continue

The tragic legacy of the Six Day War By: Ahmad Faruqui DANVILLE, Calif. _ On June 5, 1967, Israel launched a pre-emptive war against the combined militaries of Egypt, Iraq, Jordan and Syria.

Iraqi Shiites grateful to U.S. for toppling Saddam, but eager to run their own affairs By: Dana Hull NAJAF, Iraq _ Nearly three months after the fall of Saddam Hussein, the holy city of Najaf and Shiite Islamic practice _violently suppressed under his rule _ are undergoing a renaissance.