Civilian Government

While the clergy retained ultimate power in Iran after 1979, there was always a civilian government whose decisions had to be reviewed by the clergy. At times there were conflicts between the civilian government and the clerical leaders. In 1981 President Abolhassan Bani-Sadr fled Iran after political troubles and went to Europe. In early 1997 charges that Bani-Sadr made against the Iranian government caused every member of the European Union except Greece to withdraw its ambassadors from Tehran until a new Iranian president was elected in May, 1997.

In 1989 Hashemi Rafsanjani was elected executive president of Iran. Rafsanjani, whose election came just a few months after the death of Khomeini, was closely allied with Khomeini and the leaders of the Islamic Revolution. However, Rafsanjani's administration faced many problems. The clerics who had led the revolution had little training in economic matters. In 1980 Iran was able to produce only one-half the oil that it had produced in 1978.

The Iran-Iraq War, which ended in 1988, took a toll on Iran's people, army, and economy. The United States and other Western nations still held economic sanctions against Iran, contributing further to its economic woes. The educational system, reformed to meet the demands of a religious revolution, failed to prepare citizens to understand the universal demands of technology and globalization. Iranian citizens were also growing weary of the repressive policies of the Velayat-e-faghih.

During Rafsanjani's eight-year tenure, the gap between rich

And poor increased. In 2001 it was estimated that one-third of the total assets in Iranian banks was controlled by one thousand Iranian families. Figures released by the Iranian government in 1996 showed that 70 percent of government workers lived below the official poverty level. During that year Iran could not meet its OPEC quota for oil production because it had failed to invest in the oil fields.

In 1996, nineteen years after its revolution began, Iran still had to import food because its farmers had not received the government support necessary for land cultivation. That year the inflation rate stood at 50 percent and the unemployment rate at 11 percent.

By May, 1997, the Iranian people, ready for a change, chose Mohammed Khatami to serve as executive president. Khatami had served as the Iranian minister of culture but had been criticized by the clerics as being too moderate. Khatami seemed to be the favorite of women and younger voters.

Speaking before the U. N. General Assembly in October, 1998, Khatami called for a "dialogue of civilizations." He had already expressed regret for Iran's 1979 takeover of the U. S. embassy in Tehran. He also called for a dialogue between the American people and the people of Iran. Despite Khatami's moderate stance, the religious clerics had the final say in all matters. When President Khatami expressed regret for the takeover of the embassy, chief religious leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei simply responded that the United States remained the "enemy of the Islamic Republic."

Although the reformers, under President Khatami, gained some strength in elections to the national legislature in February, 2000, the hard-line religious wing of the Iranian establishment still had the power to do more than make symbolic statements. On January 13,2001, the hard-liners demonstrated their ability to block change when a Revolutionary Court sentenced ten reformers to jail terms and fines for taking part in an international conference in Berlin. In the spring of 2001, the hard-liners arrested dozens of reformist political leaders and cracked down on student organizations and other reform-minded groups. Although the top reformers and hard-liners avoided open confrontation, it

Appeared that a quiet struggle for power would remain part of Iran's political landscape for many years.