ISMS DIE NATURAL DEATHS:

Iran's revolution at 25: out of gas: Wednesday's silver anniversary marks a peak of political disillusionment. (Scott Peterson, 2/11/04, CS Monitor)

In 1979, the triumphant toppling of the reviled, US-supported shah changed the face of the Middle East, inspired Islamic militants around the world, and led to humiliation for American diplomats taken hostage for 444 days.

Today, instead of reveling in the Islamic justice and democracy once promised by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Iranians are racked with doubts. They question clerical rule, doubt the compatibility of Islam and democracy, and are disillusioned by unmet expectations.

"Behind closed doors, even the clergy is debating velayat-e-faqih [divine rule by clerics] and secularism, and their role in political power," says a Western diplomat. "They are asking: 'Is it so wise that we are running the state, that we are doing things against the will of the people, which is against Islam?' "

Many of the two-thirds of Iran's population who are under 30 - and have little more memory of the revolution than dire warnings from elders that the bloody upheaval must never be repeated - view Wednesday's silver jubilee with apathy.

The crisis between reformers and conservatives continued Tuesday, when the hard-line Guardian Council (a 12-man unelected body) released its official list for the Feb. 20 parliamentary vote - and confirmed the rejection of more than 2,000 candidates as "unfit" to stand.

Analysts say the conservative clerics are trying to retake control of the 290-seat parliament, which they lost to reformers in 2000. The hard-liners calculated that the rejection of candidates would draw only minor protest from a public that has grown disillusioned after seven years of failed democratic reform. They were right.

"After 25 years, we are at the end of attempts to legally reform the system, and there are real fears and worries," says a former revolutionary, whose skepticism is widely echoed.

Even a worst case scenario in Iraq--a replica Islamic Republic--if it has a built in lifespan of less than a generation, as all totalitarianisms seem to if left alone to fester, need hardly worry us overmuch.

Posted by Orrin Judd at February 10, 2004 8:36 PM