By his election, the U.S. was increasingly bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Israel was contending with the Second Palestinian Intifada. Both were at the nadir of their popularity in the Arab and Muslim world, and Ahmadinejad positioned himself as the leader of Islamic resistance to American and Zionist imperialism. Although he was not in charge of directing Iran’s foreign and military policy, his presidency synched up with Iran taking on a more assertive anti-Western role in the region and building its influence as a counterweight to the U.S.

The reformists had relied on two main constituencies for their electoral successes before their reversal of fortune; cosmopolitan, upwardly mobile, well-to-do Iranians and the urban poor and working classes. The reformist political establishment largely drew its cues from the former, and its policy agenda centered largely around increased cultural liberties.

International affairs, specifically as they related to the aftermath of the September 11 attacks and the launching of a U.S.-led “Global War on Terrorism,” was an additional factor undergirding the rise of the Iranian neoconservatives. The 9/11 attacks led to a brief pause in the enmity that had typically characterized the U.S.-Iranian relationship.

Khatami began his second term acknowledging the setbacks to reformism in his inaugural address and tried to boldly make institutional changes that would strengthen his ability as president to enact his agenda. In October 2001, Khatami called on the judiciary to rein in its intrusions on press freedom and its campaign of arrests targeting reformists, especially parliamentarians who were supposed to have constitutional immunity.

After the pacification of the student demonstrations, the reformist political establishment urged a renewed focus on political elections rather than street-level activism. Although the seeds of alienation had been planted among their base, the reformists, running under the banner of the 2nd Khordad movement – a reference to the date of Khatami’s improbable 1997 victory – gained outright control of the majles in the February 2000 elections.

Khamenei criticized the assailants for their excesses and called for justice to be served, but his words rang hollow as he had fanned the flames of press hostility and vigilantism since the reformists began their ascent. News of the dorm room attack catalyzed five days of student-led anti-conservative, anti-Khamenei protests, spreading to 18 Iranian cities.

Finally, in late 1998, a series of connected assassinations known as the “chain murders” took place quickly, exposing the intelligence ministry’s role in the decade-long serial killings. On September 15, 1998, Supreme Leader Khamenei called on the judiciary to rein in press outlets that abused freedom of the press.

(L-R) President Mohammad Khatami and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Source: Wikipedia Commons

With his major foreign policy goal of outreach to the U.S. stalled and his program of social liberalization imperiled by a reactionary backlash, Rafsanjani feared the balance of power in Iran shifting too far in favor of the hardline principlist conservatives. On the eve of the 1996 majles elections, Rafsanjani announced the creation of a new political organization, the Executives of Construction, which advocated for entrepreneurship and economic liberalization over revolutionary zeal.