Early this week, Mr. Latif Safari, director of the now-banned Neshat daily, was taken to prison for questioning. The previous day, Mr. Akbar Ganji, Iran's top investigative reporter, had been arrested. The hardliners are attempting to undo the election results by fiat. They are driven by personal considerations as well as political ones. The Islamic revolution has given the fundamentalists control over vast parts of the Iranian economy.
Reform threatens their financial as well as their religious interests.
That makes them doubly dangerous. Mr. Khatami has thus far proven to be a wily tactician, well aware of the dangers of pressing too far, too fast. Some of his allies have not been as judicious. Their reckless has provided the fundamentalists the excuse they needed to crack down. But the conservatives no longer speak for the Iranian people.