[Excerpts from an article by Thomas Friedman]

Watching Iranian politics today is a lot like watching the Weather Channel during hurricane season. The weatherman comes on and points to a group of clouds somewhere in the mid-Atlantic. He tells you it's not a hurricane just yet, but if you study the cloud patterns you can see the storm forming. If the current winds and temperatures persist, he concludes, it will definitely be upgraded from tropical storm to hurricane.

And so it is with Iran. Right now, the struggle between the reformers and conservatives there is still just the political equivalent of a tropical storm, with the occasional bursts of student rioting and mysterious murders. But if you look at the trends closely, and if temperatures in Iran keep rising, this low-grade struggle could turn into an Iranian version of the perfect storm…

That's why it's gut-check time for… Khatami: He was elected by Iran's reformist majority to open their society. He told them to be patient and follow the process. They did and now they're in jail… Khatami is coming to the U.N. in September to push his plan for making the year 2000 a year of "dialogue among civilizations." Well, dialogue begins at home. It's Iran's civilization that's imperiled, and if … Khatami can't protect that, something tells me the brave men and women of Iran, who fought the anti-democratic shah, will fight the anti-democratic ayatollahs.

Beware: hurricane forming in Iran.
 

Iran At Crossroads, International Herald Tribune, August 15

TEHRAN - Six months after Iran's reformers appeared poised to vanquish their conservative rivals, the balance of power has shifted, freezing the movement for change.

The platform that took the moderates to victory in parliamentary elections - including promises of a free press, measures to keep law enforcement out of private lives and the formation of independent political parties - now appears elusive. Acting upon the public endorsement of the ''supreme leader,'' Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the conservative establishment has reversed the reformers' gains.

Hard-liners in the judiciary have imprisoned nearly all leading pro-reform journalists, closed major progressive newspapers and exposed the reformers' limited power in Parliament and the presidency under their control…

Reform leaders have instructed student groups, which generally organize protests, to stay calm and refrain from going into the streets for fear the demonstrations would end in bloody clashes with the Islamic militia or police.

''The mistake the reformers made was in trying to compromise with the conservatives,'' one political activist said. ''Once the first journalist was arrested last spring, they should have told people to go out and demonstrate. But after getting inside the power structure, they made too many concessions. We have watched their power shrink and shrink and now there is little left of it.''…

''You cannot save Islam with liberalism and tolerance,'' said Ayatollah Ahmad Janati, a leading conservative. ''I am announcing clearly and openly that the closure of the newspapers was the best thing the judiciary has done since the revolution.''
 

Genie Out of the Bottle, San Francisco Examiner (Editorial), August 14

Clerically controlled Iran is like a pressure cooker whose lid is about to blow off with unpredictable results. The country's Islamic revolution two decades ago created a theocracy dominated by old men. They are ill-equipped to govern a freer-thinking generation that has come to adulthood since then...

The genie of an incensed population of younger Iranians is out of the bottle… The ayatollah doesn't know how to get it back in. His fumbling effort to do so could bring on another, bloodier Iranian revolution - directed at him and the other old men in power.
 

No Dialogue And Relations With The Incompetent US, IRNA (State News Agency), August 15

Khamenei Tuesday lashed out at the United States, saying "the U.S. government lacks political, moral and ideological competence to lead the world through establishment of a uni-polar system." He noted that many European states and Americans themselves "accept this reality."

In a meeting with Foreign Ministry officials, including Iranian ambassadors stationed abroad, the Leader said, "As regards universal issues, there is no common point between us and America. The studies conducted by the various agencies of the System and contemplation on the outcome of certain humiliating tendencies on the question of Palestine as well as the situation in some other countries, underlines the fact that dialogue and relations with the U.S. would solve no problem. The main objective of America in proposing dialogue is to prepare the ground for imposing its stances and materialize the wishes of the U.S. government." 

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