Tuesday, September 29, 1998

Rushdie gets a reprieve

Iran's new moderate leaders could see what the old religious hard-liners could not: how morally repugnant the Western world found Iran's government-backed efforts to have author Salman Rushdie murdered.

Although it was cloaked in a lot of religious blather, the late religious dictator, Ayatollah Khomeini, in 1989 basically put out a contract on Rushdie's life for having written a book, Satanic Verses, many Muslims found blasphemous.

A few translators were killed or wounded by religious hit men, but Rushdie survived unscathed thanks to a British government whose gutsy stance, including round-the-clock police protection, cost it lucrative business contracts with Iran.

Now President Mohammed Khatami's government has renounced Khomeini's death edict, the latest step in a remarkable political transformation that has seen Iran shed its pariah status. As a result, the British government has restored full diplomatic recognition and brought one step nearer the day the United States and Iran have normal, positive relations.

Khatami seems genuinely reasonable and progressive and more sure of himself in his opening to the West, but the Iranian government remains deeply divided. A semi-official foundation still has a $2.5 million bounty on Rushdie, and Iran's chief prosecutor still insists the author's death is religiously "obligatory."

Iran's official renunciation of the death edict is a truly welcome development. But Rushdie would still be well-advised not to answer the door to strangers.