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The nerve Eshkevari touches is velayat-e faqih, Khomeini's concept that gives the Muslim clergy, in particular its most revered scholar, absolute, God-given authority to govern Iran. Considering that legacy, political reformers avoid challenging it directly. But dissident clerics began questioning the dogma after Khomeini's death, an action that put some 500 mullahs in prison or under house arrest, including the most senior critic, Ayatullah Hossein Ali Montazari, once Khomeini's designated successor. Conservatives are worried that democracy will disembowel velayat-e faqih--and the clerical establishment along with it. "If this debate is not resolved," warns Eshkevari, "the Islamic Republic will run into a dead end."
Iran's conservatives are starting to recognize that they need new answers to these old questions. Even old-line radicals like Mohammed Mousavi Khoeiniha, the man who green-lighted the student takeover of the U.S. embassy 21 years ago, are pushing for a new vision of Iranian democracy. During a rare interview over tea and caramels, the cleric explains that "the country must be based on a democratic foundation accepted by the people." To make that happen, Iran's conservatives are loosening up--a bit. Islamic courts are allowing limited coverage of proceedings--most notably in the trial of 13 Jewish Iranians accused of spying for Israel. Despite sanctioning the press crackdown, spiritual leader Ayatullah Ali Khamenei--successor to Khomeini--has warned religious militants against thuggery and publicly praises Khatami--as if cautioning security forces against a coup. But Khamenei rejects any vision of freedom that threatens Islam's position in power. "As long as I live," he warned in a recent Friday sermon, "I will not allow anybody to lead the country toward secularism."
But who, then, will lead the country toward the economic and social reform it so badly needs? Crushed by inflation and 16% unemployment, Iranians are losing patience. At Tehran University two weeks ago, thousands held a pro-democracy demonstration, chanting angry slogans against hard-line mullahs while holding pictures of jailed Iranian journalists. If anything, the convening of a reform parliament puts more pressure on Khatami to satisfy the yearning for change. "We understand he is trying to fill a huge pool with an eyedropper," says Tehran secretary Rezvan Nayeri, 34. "But there is no more room for excuses." Some students are frustrated too that the reform movement remains an insider's game, still intolerant of secularists, socialists or anyone ambivalent about the Islamic Revolution. Says Ibrahim Yazdi, head of the Iran Freedom Movement: "If we can create a democracy that is Iranianized and Islamicized, then this historical experiment can be a model for other countries."