Last week's suicide bombings in Jerusalem, the response of the Israeli and Palestinian authorities, and the inability of the US or the EU to provide any hope of a way out of present difficulties, show how turbulent a region the Middle East is. But in a region fraught with instability and danger, a glimmer of hope may have been provided by the installation of Iran's new president, Mohammed Khatami, who took office yesterday. President Khatami's family was close to the late Ayatollah Khomeini, and he commands respect throughout Iran both as a seyyed, a descendant of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad, and as a hojatoleslam or high-ranking Shia Muslim cleric and theologian. But he also has a reputation for tolerance and for openness.
The president's election came as a surprise to many observers. After a stint as Culture Minister in the 1980s and early 1990s, a time of unprecedented cultural and artistic freedom, he had been sidelined to the National Library, where many expected him to accept political oblivion. Now, against the expectations of many, he succeeds President Rafsanjani as the Islamic Republic's fifth elected president. He comes to office with massive public support, having received 69 per cent of the poll, or 20 million votes, in May, compared with seven million votes for his hard-line challenger, the Speaker of Parliament, Ali Akbar Nateq-Nouri.
The scale of his crushing victory stunned the ruling conservative clergy, and the president may interpret it as a mandate to ease Islamic strictures in force since 1979 and to forge ahead with economic reforms to combat high inflation and unemployment. It is widely believed that he could be the first Iranian president to appoint women to his cabinet. He has two weeks to present his cabinet for approval to the Majlis or parliament, where the hardliners still have a majority and the power to challenge his choice of ministers and stall his policies. Iran's supreme religious authority, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, retains the final word on religious and political issues, particularly foreign policy.
President Khatami struck a conciliatory note at a hand-over ceremony on Sunday, saying Iran wants peaceful co-existence with the rest of the world. But he continued to blame the US and Israel for many of the woes of the region. Washington still accuses Tehran of sponsoring international terrorism and of blocking peace in the Middle East. And with continuing disagreements over a bombing in Germany in 1992 and the fatwa against Salman Rushdie, no EU ambassador was present for the swearing-in ceremonies in Tehran. Now Washington is showing signs that it may soften its stand towards Iran if President Khatami holds out an olive branch. The first test of a new dawn will come when he names his government. Washington will scrutinise his choices for three key portfolios - foreign affairs, defence and intelligence - to detect any willingness to adopt a different approach towards the West.
But expectations for change are generally low as Iran's president remains second only to the spiritual Ayatollah Khameini in the country's political pecking order and many of the hardliners remain in key posts. A new climate may be encouraged with the predicted departure of the long-time foreign minister, Ali Akbar Velayati, who openly backed President Khatami's election rival, and his likely replacement by Kamal Kharazi, a former ambassador to the UN. But President Khatami could be committing political suicide if he moves too quickly to resolve many of Iran's lingering disputes with the outside world, which must watch and wait patiently.