Tehran

In fact, Iran's conservatives, many analysts say, like the strongman idea and have studied closely the "China model"--political repression coupled with cultural and economic liberalization. Give Iranians jobs and more social freedoms, bolstering the middle class, the argument goes, and much of the dissent will vanish. Iran's conservatives have already displayed limited aspects of the China model: They have begun reaching out to foreign investors and have allowed limited cultural openings in cinema, the arts and even pop music, and the harassment of women for "dress-code violations" is also dramatically down.

But while it may be true that an Iranian version of the China model could forestall unrest, the strengthening of Iran's devastated middle class, weakened by twenty-four years of economic mismanagement, could sow the seeds for future revolt. After all, increasingly prosperous middle classes eventually seek a voice in their government--a lesson that the last Pahlavi king learned all too well.

It was not supposed to come to this: a bitter populace, a tottering reform movement, ascendant conservatives toying with the China model, middle-class romanticizing of past dictator-kings. After all, Iran at the time of Khatami's election represented hope for the Middle East: a model of an indigenous democracy movement that emerged from below, from the ranks of former revolutionaries and Islamic intellectuals (and not a secular elite) who saw, in the end, that people did not want empty revolutionary slogans but a prosperous economy, social and political freedoms, and the dignity that comes with choosing your own destiny. Iran's reformists would gradually, in an evolutionary process, lead the way to democracy, the reasoning went. While secular democrats were still out of the game, they cheered on the reformists, hoping it would eventually create spaces for them. All of this was backed by overwhelming election victories.

But as with all reform movements that emerge from within ideological autocracies, they must contend with the crushing weight of the status quo, vested interests, the legacy of the revolution and, crucially, lack of access to the instruments of coercive force. When Iran's conservatives sensed trouble, they reminded Iranians who retains control.

In several conversations with leading reformists over the course of three weeks, I got a sense that the movement is like a disoriented prizefighter who has been knocked around for seven rounds and doesn't know whether he should go back out again. In one extraordinary moment of bare honesty, a well-regarded prodemocracy professor and confidant of embattled reformist President Mohammad Khatami said: "I just don't know what we can do. I am at loss."

Two conversations stuck with me from my three weeks in Iran. The first was with a religious intellectual named Ali Reza Alavitabar, a leading reformist newspaper publisher and academic, who faces an array of trumped-up charges against him for his outspoken prodemocracy views. He has served hard jail time, and stands to serve more. Formerly he was an anti-Shah revolutionary and Khomeini supporter who, like many of today's reformists, saw the need for change. He does not hail from Iran's modern middle class of technocrats and professionals, who are often Western-educated and secular, but rather from the traditional middle class of clerks, bazaar merchants and clergymen--key backers of the 1979 revolution. Today, he views the mingling of religion and politics with suspicion, and while he won't say so out loud, he and many others like him have morphed into secular democrats.

Alavitabar said he worries that the conservatives will become even more entrenched than they are already, as ordinary people give up on the possibility of peaceful change. The recent Tehran municipal elections offer a microcosm: Tehranis stayed away from the polls en masse, while the conservatives rallied their 20 percent base and won. "I understand that people are upset and frustrated," he continued. "But we should not retreat. We need to continue writing, speaking and possibly taking it to the next level: nonviolent civil disobedience. We are on the verge of something important here. It should not be stopped."

The other conversation, with a young man named Hamid, once a devoted follower of the reformists, reminded me of the deep angst felt by today's Iranian youth and, in the end, might offer a more realistic, if troubling, scenario for the future. "I have lost hope," Hamid said. "My friends have lost hope. We longer talk of changing Iran. Instead, we talk of leaving Iran."

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