Iran's Candidates

The relentless saga of the frustration of the reformists in Iran continues with the Council of Guardians' decision to ban nearly half the candidates for Parliamentary elections. Conservatives have been using their control over these unaccountable institutions to frustrate reform efforts for years. This decision, in all its brazen disregard for the rule of law, comes as the culmination of the conservative counter-reformation (so to speak).

On the one hand, it's a sign of strength for the conservatives - demonstrating that there is nothing that the reformists can do about it. Khatami long ago made it clear that he would not go outside the existing institutional structures to press his case, a decision which has crippled the reformists and emboldened the conservatives. This move has all the earmarks of a direct, frontal challenge to the reformists, aimed at forcing them to admit their defeat and to capitulate.

But it also shows the weakness of the conservatives, and their fear of free elections. Having to resort openly to such manipulations demonstrates clearly their recognition that they could not win a fair democratic competition. They can control the existing institutions, but only by stripping those institutions of their legitimacy.

This doesn't mean that Iran is on the brink of a revolution, as Michael Ledeen and the neocons would have it. Encouraging dissidents to rise up isn't going to help the situation - indeed, such exhortations strengthen the hand of the conservatives by giving substance to their constant accusations that the reformists are American pawns or foreign-backed traitors. The forces which are attempting to challenge the regime - student movements, especially - aren't really the liberal democrats which they are sometimes portrayed to be. And the forces backed by the neocons - the son of the Shah and remnants of the old regime - have virtually no support or influence in Iran, and are mainly important (like the INC) as purveyors of inaccurate but politically useful (to the neocons) propaganda.

One quick note on the earthquake. Earthquakes have played decisive roles in the rise of Islamist movements in several Arab countries - both the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the FIS in Algeria dramatically increased their popularity by responding effectively to an earthquake while states stood by helplessly or indifferently. Thus far the Iranian official response seems equally inept - but no alternative civil society trend seems to be stepping up to take advantage. If one does - and I haven't followed this closely enough to know - it could be a leading indicator of the rise of a social movement able to capitalize on the lost legitimacy of the existing Islamist republic.