Part 11: The Student Protests

However, it was also a wakeup call for Khamenei and other conservatives in the regime. While they initially allowed competitive elections with the belief that the reformists would not dominate or seek radical change, it quickly became neither of these things were true. The population had become disillusioned with the conservative leadership of the Islamic Republic and turned to the reformists for another way. Moreover, the reformists were serious in their rhetoric of liberalizing the Islamic Republic and pursued fundamental changes to the regime.

Although both the reformists and conservatives were strong supporters of the concept of an Islamic Republic, they differed sharply on their visions for Iran. Both camps within the regime would claim to be following the true path of Khomeini and the 1979 revolution. The coalition of Islamists that had existed for twenty years was splintering as two irreconcilable visions of the Islamic Republic were now competing for power in Iran.

In this environment, the conservatives made the decision to clamp down on any reformist attempts to change the authoritarian bent of the regime. They would launch a campaign to regain control of the elected branches of the government using any means necessary. This also meant that the reformists would also have to decide how they would respond to the conservative backlash against their efforts to transform the regime.

One of first tests for both the reformists and the conservatives would be during the student protests of July 1999. In effect, the conservative backlash already had started with limits on freedom of speech and the closure of reformist newspapers in early 1999. In this effort, Salam newspaper which belonged to Khatami’s political party was forced to close causing widespread discontent among students at Tehran University.

They organized a peaceful protest against the closure and in support Khatami, but paramilitary groups loyal to conservatives in the regime descended on the university arresting hundreds and killing one student. This incident triggered protests among students throughout the country which was joined by other youths who were generally dissatisfied with the regime.

The 1999 student protests represented the greatest unrest in Iran up to that point since the 1979 revolution, and it would have profound consequences for both the conservatives and reformists. The conservatives’ natural inclination was to put down the protest by force and the paramilitary groups loyal to the regime were able to restore order within a week. Such a response from conservatives was expected, but the actions of Khatami and the reformists deeply disappointed those who wanted them to stand up for the protesters.

At this point in the history of the Islamic Republic, the reformists were committed to changing Iran by working within the regime in a gradual process of reform. Such a mass uprising threatened this process since conservatives might try to crush the overall reform moment if it did not disavow the protests. Moreover, the reformists still believed in the Islamic Republic and chaos on the streets might lead to a situation in which the entire concept of the regime would be threatened.

As Khatami would later say "Am I supposed to declare war against a regime that I accept in principle? I believe that if this regime is gone, it is not at all clear what will follow it - regardless of my religious belief. The people who want to change the constitution and the regime - can they guarantee that once the current regime is gone, Western-style democracy will be established here?"

Since the reformists at this point still had a role in the regime, they temporarily renewed their old alliance with conservatives to restore order in the Islamic Republic. “Despite his deeply held democratic convictions, Khatami proved too much a man of the system” and would criticize the protests as threatening the foundations of the Islamic Republic (Takeyh 2009, 193). The student protests were crushed and the youth of Iran had felt betrayed by the president they had helped to elect. Yet as the reformists were purged from the system in the years to come, they would no longer have an incentive to cooperate in the same way with conservatives to maintain the system.

The student protests was the last time that reformists and conservatives would work together so closely to maintain the Islamic Republic. Although a conservative backlash had started before the student protests, the events of July 1999 helped to galvanize conservatives to use greater authoritarian tactics to regain control of the regime. As a result, conservatives would intensify their crackdown on the reformists not just by closing newspapers, but launching a campaign of arrests and intimidation.