Forty eight hours after the assassination of famous lawyer pleading the case of former Pakistani president Nawaz Sharif, terrorists in Iran, a country neighboring Pakistan, made a similar attempt on the life of Said Hajjarian, senior political advisor to President Mohammad Khatami and a major leader of Iran’s reformist movement.

Both terrorist attempts are indicative of the fact that political players of fledgling democracies in the Middle East are impatient with their defeats.

As the present author previously mentioned in the article "The Morning After", since the conservatives claim to have all the rights and to be rightful, they will leave no stone unturned to compensate for their defeat in the parliamentary elections and save their face.

The conservatives regard themselves as the incarnation and upholders of Islam, and use this as an alibi to resort to any means – even violence – to preserve Islam!

Immediately after the conservative defeat in the parliamentary elections, some conservative-led papers wrote of the need to make recourse to hostility and violence and to create blood baths. These were only some indications of more evil that was to follow.

The air was heavy with premonition of attempts on the lives of prominent reformists in Iran. The first target was Said Hajjarian, a key leader and political theoretician of Iran’s reformist movement who was shot just as he was to enter the City Council on Sunday.

Hajjarian was spotlighted when he disclosed the names of those responsible for the spate of killings committed by the Interior Ministry clique in fall 1998. He also played a dramatic role in following up the case of the said serial killings. The attempt on Hajjarian’s life can then be taken as an act of revenge by the remaining members of that clique.

Given the fact that the assassins fled the scene of the crime with high powered motor bikes that are only used by the police, Basij (militant volunteer youth), and security forces and that the assassination took place in broad day light without any attempt at concealing it, two analyses seem at point.

First, Masoud Rajavi’s terrorist grouplet (MKO) is responsible but does not claim responsibility in a bid to put the blame on Iran’s domestic factions to create hostility and pessimism among these factions and cause unrest and tension in the country. Granted that this is true, the reformists should exercise self-restraint, while the more realistic and moderate conservatives should stave off the violence and impatience of the conservative camp in an attempt to defuse the tension and avert a crisis.

Second, the assassins are affiliated with the violent extremists inside the country who oppose the reform movement. They had no wish to conceal their identities and rather made the assassination attempt to overtly declare their final war with Iran’s reformists. If this is the case, a very troubling future will lie ahead of Iran’s reformist movement, a future which will be diametrically opposed to the ideals cherished by the reformers.

When insecurity mounts in any country, political observers usually expect a coup or military rule to restore order. But any wing that stages such a coup in Iran would deal a direct blow to the entirety of the reformist movement and democratization process in the country.