Iran's democratic hopes are surging once again

The 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran was one of the 20th century's greatest political heists. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his cohorts abducted a popular movement that was bent on creating a democratic and independent Iran. The mullahs instead created a theocracy, where nearly all power rests with an un-elected ``spiritual leader.'' His power -- and it will be ``he'' as long as the system lasts -- knows no limit, and his legitimacy rests not with the people, but on divine mandate.

A unique opportunity was aborted in this heist, and the hopes of a rising middle class were betrayed. Yet Iran's middle class has never stopped struggling for its goals, and the same social tensions that brought the mullahs to power now threaten to depose them.

Chronic crisis is the defining characteristic of the Islamic regime. The current crisis, triggered by student protests on the anniversary of an earlier attack on university dormitories, is only the latest chapter of this tragic tale.

Along with this long-fermenting internal struggle, there are now nearly 200,000 U.S. soldiers at the borders of Iran; President Bush has described Iran as a member of an ``axis of evil,'' along with defeated Iraq; and the Islamic Republic is apparently trying to acquire nuclear weapons. The result is a historic juncture full of peril and promise.

Iran's turbulent history over the past 25 years cannot be understood without some appreciation of the dynamics that brought about this anachronism.

Iran entered the 20th century embroiled in a battle for democracy and independence. In 1906, a coterie of intellectuals, mostly from the embryonic middle class, forced the despots who ruled the country to sign a new constitution, one limiting the power of the king and allowing the creation of a genuine democratic system.

But democracy is more than just an idea. It requires an intricate network of institutions; it needs a civil society to act as a buffer between the people and power. It is, as philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau never tired of reminding his readers, a highly sensitive organism, in need of constant monitoring and mentoring. It requires a citizenry conscious of the perils that threaten democracies and committed to political patience and tolerance.

Attempting democracy

Democratic laws were enacted as a result of Iran's constitutional revolution, but the social institutions and political habits necessary for democracy's survival were simply lacking. The result was two decades of chaos -- and chaos, history teaches, is a fertile ground for Caesars who deliver peace at the price of liberty.

A pair of modernizing, but despotic, kings emerged. Reza Shah (who ruled as shah from 1925 to 1941) and his son, Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi (who ruled from 1941 to 1979), undertook modernizing the economy and much of its infrastructure. The more these reforms succeeded, the stronger the middle class became. As it increased in numbers and economic significance, the middle class's agitation for democratic rights increased.

But the Pahlavis believed that despotism was the price of modernization.

The shah and the Islamic forces that took power after him represent chapters in a familiar tale the curse of oil money. In Middle East countries, oil money allows governments to act not as servants of the people, but as their masters. Men of power control the purse, doling out portions of the loot to try to keep their subjects docile. The shah believed that with Iran's newfound wealth, he could buy the political allegiance and acquiescence of the middle class. But he was wrong.

His disdain for democracy grew stronger during the Nixon era, when American officials were warned by the president not to pester the shah about it. The harvest of President Nixon's policy and the shah's refusal to heed the demands of his people was the revolution of 1979.

Brink of revolution

On the eve of the revolution, when the crisis threatening the throne deepened, the disorganized middle class did not have a moderate force in the wings capable of weathering the storm. The mullahs, long imagined by the shah and his secret police to be a bulwark against communist danger, had been the only force allowed to organize.

Out of desperation, the middle class and the urban working class united with Khomeini. The ayatollah, who had been fighting the shah since 1963, hid his true purpose -- creating a theocracy -- in the obfuscating garb of anti-colonial, anti-Israeli and anti-American rhetoric.

The mullahs were well aware of the rising significance of the middle class. They realized that traditional Islam, with its emphasis on total obedience of the masses to the mullahs, was not likely to attract increasingly cosmopolitan Iranians. Clerics like Khomeini began to temper their public pronouncements to fit the democratic aspirations of this class, and he kept up an impeccable democratic facade in the months leading up to the revolution.

Even more important was the clerics' role in fostering a new version of Islam, rid of all signs of obscurantism, and responsive to the rational tendencies of the educated middle class.

The conditions for democracy were more or less available Rudiments of civil society had been created during the shah's modernizing efforts, a large enough middle class was on the scene, and the people had repeatedly shown their desire and readiness for democracy.

The power of this alliance was enough to topple the shah.

But as soon as Khomeini returned from exile to Iran and realized the organizational weakness of the middle class, he began to renege on his promises. The new democratic constitution that was drafted during the months leading to the revolution was scuttled, and in its place a draconian set of laws rammed through the mullah-dominated Constitutional Assembly.

A veritable apartheid was created, in which a small band of mullahs gave themselves an exclusive monopoly on power, privilege and wealth. In a nod to the democratic movement that propelled them to power, the mullahs promised to allow a president, and a parliament, both to be directly elected by the people. But there was an important caveat added to even this modest democratic gesture All candidates for these posts had to be approved by a committee of mullahs.

Saddam Hussein's 1980 attack on Iran delayed, for the duration of the eight-year Iran-Iraq war, open confrontation between advocates of democracy and supporters of this new Islamic apartheid.

When the war finally ended -- and Khomeini accepted a peace he equated with taking poison -- the middle class emerged from its temporary nationalist cocoon and began once again to fight for its demands. Increasingly, people voiced ideas about secularism, the rule of law, the sanctity of the private realm, a viable market economy, freedom from the predatory influence of special interests and the state, and finally, normal relations with the rest of the world, particularly the United States.

Supporters of democracy

Powerful allies from an unexpected source soon joined democratic forces. Some of the regime's staunchest supporters returned from the front only to grasp the corruption and oppression that had rotted away the regime they once idealized. And Islamic student unions, once the bastions of zealotry, became the vanguards in the battle for democracy and secularism.

Women also have played a key role in every stage. They thwarted the regime's early attempts to create a gender apartheid in Iran -- one much along the same lines of what the world later witnessed in the Taliban's Afghanistan.

Dashed hopes can lead to despair in some, resignation in others, and renewed resolve for the most committed. Another response to the chronic crisis has been exile. Ever since the revolution, many of Iran's middle class, particularly those with professional training, chose or were forced into a life of exile. In the United States they have become an economic powerhouse, though they are only beginning to organize politically.

Like all exiles, diaspora Iranians continue to have an avid interest in their native land and its fate. Some have a restoration of the monarchy on their mind, while many others insist on the establishment of a secular, democratic republic. Both groups have become increasingly more active and organized in response to the deepening crisis in Iran.

U.S. policy

The need for a clear American policy about Iran has never been greater; the confusion of policy has also never been more obvious.

It is safe to say that ever since the end of the Nixon presidency, Washington has not had a strategic vision about Iran. Instead, it has relied on a series of short-lived reactive policies. Today's bluster becomes tomorrow's bluff.

The best the United States can do under the current circumstances is make a strategic alliance with the Iranian people, particularly the middle class with its democratic aspirations. The U.S. government should declare clearly and categorically that it will not make a ``deal'' with the mullahs.

The United States also should help spread reliable news and democratic ideas throughout Iran. It should confront Tehran's constant breaches of human rights in every international forum.

Finally, one of the best ways to disarm the Shiite mullahs of Iran is to turn next-door Iraq into a showcase for democracy -- and for how Shiites can live amicably and prosperously with other religions and sects.

For the rest, the United States will have to rely on the recipe provided by one wit on ``The Daily Show With Jon Stewart'' To bring about democracy in Iran, create a theocracy, wait 20 years and stir.

Those 20 years are now up.

ABBAS MILANI, who taught at Tehran University until 1986, is a research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. His latest book, ``The Persian Sphinx Amir Abbas Hoveyda and the Riddle of the Iranian Revolution,'' will soon be published in paperback. He wrote this article for Perspective.