Trying To Build A Democracy In Iran

With his country on the Bush Administration's "Axis Of Evil" list and under international scrutiny for its suspected nuclear-weapons program, the last thing Iran's supreme leader, Ayatullah Ali Khamenei, needs right now is another diplomatic and political contretemps. So when he met with the hard-line clerics of the powerful Guardian Council last week, he first thanked his "dear brothers" for their hard work — and then asked his underlings to reconsider their Jan. 11 decision to bar hundreds of candidates, including 80 incumbent M.P.s, from parliamentary elections next month. Otherwise, he warned, Iran might dissolve in a "chaos of disagreement." With the barring, Iran's hard-liners were hoping to regain control of the 290-member, reformist-dominated Parliament. But dissenting M.P.s began a sit-in at Parliament in protest: if the council doesn't back down, a source in the reformist camp tells TIME, they will make good on a threat to resign en masse and possibly force their moderate leader, President Mohammed Khatami, to step down as well. "It's becoming an all-or-nothing fight," says the source. "The conservatives are intent on ousting the reformists, and the reformists are just as determined to stand up to them."

The Bush Administration — which has lately tried to ease relations with Tehran — criticized the ban. And French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, though at odds with Washington's Iraq policy, agreed in this case. He warned a visiting Tehran official last week that France will view the balloting as "an important marker of democracy." Khamenei's move indicates he, at least, is listening.