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If you had tried to guess which one of the Khatami brothers would have grown up to be President, you most likely would have chosen the President's younger brother Reza. With his film-star looks, he seems the picture of a politico (though his British education as a nephrologist is perhaps an unlikely pedigree). But Reza sees something in his brother that other Iranians seem to spot as well--an ability to telegraph hope without igniting fear. If left to his own devices, Reza speculates, his brother would return to the books of the national library and quiet afternoons of philosophical discussion. Mrs. Khatami, Reza adds, "on the whole is not very pleased" with her husband's new career.
But what seems to drive the President--to keep him in office even as friends suffer for his reforms--is an idealistic sense of duty to the nation and a deep belief that the Iranian people must be given the power to choose. "Khatami never expected and does not expect now to be able to carry out all of his plans," Reza explains. "But he believed that he could take one step forward." Reza pauses in reflection. "In my opinion," he adds, "he has had one goal. And that was to keep hope alive in people's hearts." It remains to be seen if Khatami will be the Mikhail Gorbachev of Iran. But he has already begun to lead the nation down a path that seems inevitable. His occasional silence in the face of monstrous challenges isn't the quiet of a man who has no passion or no ideas. Instead, it's the quiet determination of a man who will not give up.
--With reporting by Massimo Calabresi/Washington