Khatami: A man of gradual reform

January 6, 1998
Web posted at: 5:24 p.m. EST (2224 GMT)

TEHRAN (CNN) -- Mohammed Khatami is seen by many in the West as the most reform-minded Iranian leader in many years. He took over at the helm of the nation in May after more than 20 million voters defied the country's conservative and hard-line leadership to vote for the former culture minister and father of three.

Khatami enjoyed particular support from younger voters -- not least of all women -- who felt the pressures of high unemployment, rising prices and the rigors of hard-line religious doctrine which shapes much of modern-day life in Iran.

To western observers, the support of the young was a clear sign that they not only wanted change, they wanted it soon.

But despite Khatami's convincing victory, many Iranians remained skeptical about how much change he would be able to usher in over the objections of hard-liners such as Ali Khamenei, the country's spiritual leader, who ranks above the president.

Signs of a domestic ideological clash were visible during the recent 55-nation Islamic summit in Tehran; a gathering which, in itself, was evidence to some observers of a new opening up to the world by Iran.

During the December summit, the hard-line Khamenei launched a blistering attack on the West as being materialistic, money-seeking, gluttonous and carnal.

Khatami responded quickly and firmly, saying that an Islamic society and its Western counterpart were "not necessarily in conflict."

His vision of Iran

After his election in May, Khatami had outlined his own much more "liberal" vision of a new Iran.

"Citizens of the Islamic civil society enjoy the right to determine their own destiny, supervise their government and hold it accountable. The government in such a society is the servant of the people and not their master," Khatami said in what observers saw as a veiled attack against Khamenei and his supporters.

And even though Khatami, during that same summit, strongly criticized the presence of U.S. military forces in the region as a "source of tension and insecurity," later he noticeably softened his anti-U.S. rhetoric.

For it was the same Khatami who in December offered what political observers described as an olive branch when he called for a "thoughtful dialogue with the American people."

That call marked the most dramatic break with Tehran's traditional anti-Washington rhetoric, which regularly painted the United States as the "The Great Satan."

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