Khatami caught between worlds

WASHINGTON -- In 2000, weeks before a summit at the United Nations, Iranian President Mohammad Khatami sent a message to the world body that he might be willing to do the unthinkable: shake President Clinton's hand.

The offer, which set off a flurry of secret diplomacy, might have produced one of history's most memorable handshakes, and perhaps improved relations with the United States, which had severed ties with Iran after the seizure of US hostages in 1979. But at the last minute, Khatami changed his mind, fearing a backlash against him from hard-liners at home, according to Kaveh L. Afrasiabi, an Iranian academic who tried to organize the UN meeting.

That failed handshake sums up the complicated legacy of a man who pressed for political and cultural reforms in Iran while president from 1997 to 2005, only to be overruled by more conservative clerics.

Khatami, scheduled to speak at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government today, still finds himself caught between striving for greater friendship between Iran and the West and respecting the rules of fundamentalists who hold the real power in Iran. His five-city tour of the United States -- unprecedented for a senior Iranian dignitary since 1979 -- has made him a target of conservatives here and at home.

Governor Mitt Romney refused to allow State Police to protect him during his Massachusetts visit, holding Khatami responsible for ``the murder and torture" of student activists. In Iran, hard-liners have called for him to be stripped of his clerical status for reaching out to America, Iran's enemy.

``He is under tremendous pressure from this risk that he has taken to come here," said Hadi Ghaemi, Iran researcher for Human Rights Watch, based in New York.

Khatami's visit underscores a larger debate about whether better relations between the United States and Iran are possible or whether the two countries are headed for a confrontation over Iran's nuclear program. The two are also at odds over Iran's support for Hezbollah and Hamas, militant groups that call for Israel's destruction and are considered terrorist organizations by the US government.

His trip has also given Americans a chance to question a former Iranian leader whose sweeping promises of economic and political reforms ended in failure, disappointment and, for some of his supporters, death.

``Khatami's election represented the hopes of Iranians for greater opening to the world," said Tamara Wittes, a scholar at the Brookings Institution in Washington. ``But those hopes were dashed fairly quickly when it became clear that the clerical establishment that holds the power in Iran wasn't going to give him free rein." She said he is now seen as a ``hapless failure."

Trita Parsi, an author who heads the largest Iranian-American organization in the United States, the National Iranian American Council, said: ``At the end of the day, he shied away from political risk too much. One of his big regrets was that he never shook Clinton's hand," he said, citing Khatami's inner circle.

Khatami was born into a prominent religious family and wears the black turban signifying that he is a direct descendant of the Prophet Mohammed. He studied theology in Qom, becoming a disciple of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who would become the first supreme leader of the new Islamic republic. But he also has a bachelor's degree in philosophy from a secular university in Iran, where he studied Western democracy.

Like many Iranian students who opposed the rule of the US-backed shah, he joined the revolutionary movement, heading the Islamic Center in West Germany that served as a revolutionary outpost in Europe.

In 1979, the year that revolutionaries stormed the US Embassy in Tehran and took 66 Americans hostage, Khatami returned to Iran. He eventually was elected to parliament and served for a decade as minister of culture and Islamic guidance, but resigned in 1992 after conservatives complained that he had relaxed censorship of books, film, art, and music.

Only candidates cleared by an unelected group of Muslim clerics can seek political office. In 1997, he was allowed to run for president on a reform platform and gained an estimated 70 percent of the vote. His presidency ushered in a new era of opening to the outside world. He became the first Iranian leader since 1979 to visit France, Germany, and the Arab world. He encouraged ``people-to-people exchanges" of sports teams, artists, and academics with the United States. In 2001, after the US invasion of Afghanistan, Khatami's government quietly helped the United States set up the new Afghan government.

But at home, Khatami was losing his struggle with the hard-liners. His moves toward more openness -- like relaxed social rules of dress -- were quickly reversed by intelligence organs and religious courts controlled by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and committees of more conservative clerics.

Wittes, the Brookings scholar, said Khatami's more conservative political rivals created new intelligence services inside the judiciary system and outside Khatami's control to ``get around Khatami and his attitude."

In 1998, four dissident writers were mysteriously killed in two months, as were the leader of an opposition party and his wife. Khatami denounced the killings and ordered a top-level investigation that led to the arrest of members of Iran's intelligence agency, an unprecedented move. But the killings shook the faith in Khatami, and the trouble continued.

Saaed Hajjarian, a key political adviser of Khatami, was shot and disabled. Other political figures close to Khatami were arrested or impeached.

Abdollah Nouri, one of the leading reformers in Iran who was Khatami's vice president and interior minister, was sentenced by a religious court to five years in prison for publishing ``sacrilegious articles" in his reformist newspaper.

In July 1999, when students staged demonstrations across the country calling for reform and press freedom, secret police brutally cracked down, arresting thousands. Some of those jailed say they were tortured; others remain in prison. ``They cracked down on his supporters to weaken his base and to show that he cannot deliver on the promises that were made," said Ghaemi, of Human Rights Watch.

Many protesters became disillusioned with Khatami, believing that he stood by as the students who supported him were crushed.

``There was a lot of bitterness that Khatami didn't step up at that point," said Michael Rubin, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington-based think tank, who was in Iran during the riots. ``That's why the students hate him."

Parsi, of the National Iranian American Council, said that many supporters understood Khatami's silence in 1999 because they believed that hard-liners would have used the situation to oust him. But in 2003, when authorities quashed new student demonstrations, people were disillusioned.

Khatami won a second term in 2001, but by the end of that term, his movement had been all but crushed. In 2005, hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad replaced him.

Khatami's trip to the United States now, Wittes said, ``is an attempt to be relevant at a time when the voices of reformers are basically shut out of Iranian politics."

Mohammad Khatami

Personal

Born in 1943 in Ardakan, Iran, in the Yazd Province. Married with two daughters and a son.

Education

Studied and taught at a madrassa, a traditional religious school, in the holy city of Qom. Received a degree in philosophy from Isfahan University and a master's in education from the University of Tehran. Speaks Farsi, Arabic, English, and German.

Experience

Minister of culture and Islamic guidance from 1982 to 1992; eased restrictions on publications, films, art, and music but was forced to resign.

Defeated three opponents in 1997 for the presidency, with an estimated 70 percent of the vote. Sought to fight inflation and high unemployment rates, advocate for women, and improve relations with the West. But he failed to deliver significant change as his moderate views clashed with those of more conservative clerics.

Quote

``It's good at the present time, where war, violence, and repression is so prevalent across the world, for all of us who are followers of God's religion to pursue all efforts for the establishment of peace and security."

SOURCES: Britannica Online, Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia.

Compiled by Holly Fletcher