BRUSSELS -- Images of Iran seem stuck in a time warp that dates back to the early 1980s, when the country was considered to be one of the world's "rogue states" due to its militant standoff with the United States and its state support of Islamic terror groups. Now it is a flawed democracy -- with a distinctly patchy record on human rights -- trying to break free from the chains of a theocratic constitution that gives the clergy a veto over the decisions of elected politicians and allows it to control key appointments to positions of power.
Reformist President Mohammad Khatami, re-elected in 2001 with 77 percent of the vote in a contest with an 83-percent turnout rate, is battling for power. He was blocked by a conservative Parliament in his first term, but his opponents were swept away in the February 2000 general election when the reformists won 80 percent of the vote and a clear majority.
Since the last presidential elections, the Parliament has passed legislation to loosen restrictions on the press, to abolish torture and improve human rights, to raise the age of marriage for girls from a child-molesting 9 to adolescence, and to break the economic gridlock by privatizing some of the state enterprises that control 85 percent of the economy. The unelected Council of Guardians has blocked the first three bills and forced the last to be watered down. This body is controlled by the conservative Ayatollah Sayed Ali Khamanei, who was selected by the clergy to replace Ayatollah Khomeini as spiritual leader upon the latter's death in 1989.