WASHINGTON — A generation after its Islamic revolution, Iran is witnessing a transformation that could be as profound as the upheaval that ended 2,500 years of monarchy. The world's only modern theocracy is becoming a democracy.
Like many countries in the throes of transition, Iran still has a long way to go. But the once unthinkable is now possible.
Imagine this: The country that the West once feared most because of its fiery Muslim militancy could evolve into a model of what the West would actually like to have happen elsewhere in the Islamic bloc, a group of 50-plus countries with the world's last functioning monarchies and the largest number of authoritarian regimes.
But the stunning sweep by reformers in Iran's elections on Feb. 18 shouldn't have come as a surprise.
First, Iran has followed the natural rhythm of all revolutions. Each passes through stages like the course of a disease: from early delirium to a convalescence, often set back by relapses and, finally, recovery. Iran is now in that final stage of returning to political health and normality--or at least trying to.
It's visible today not only at the ballot box. Since President Mohammad Khatami's election in 1997, which marked the first turning point, Iran's feisty new alternative press has run scoops on intelligence-ministry misadventures; exposes on state corruption; editorials against practices such as stoning for adultery; critiques of the loftiest clerics, including former President Hashemi Rafsanjani; and even interviews with U.S. officials.
Despite harassment, trials on charges of un-Islamic activities and some forced newspaper closures, the press has persevered. Iran's bold movers have dared to tackle such issues as the regime's failure to address poverty, women's rights, racial bias and child exploitation. One movie with three endings challenged the idea of a single truth--or a "single path," the term invoked by conservative clerics in justifying their singular vision of an Islamic state.
Second, and with special irony, Iran's revolution created the very conditions that eventually unseated the clique of conservative clerics who hijacked the revolution after the shah departed and crafted an authoritarian theocracy.
The Islamic Republic bred a huge generation of young people, now coming of age, and gave them the vote at age 15. It educated females, for which it won U.N. commendation for closing the gender literacy gap. It brought traditional religious families into the political system, once considered anathema because politics were scorned or distrusted by most Iranians during the monarchy.
