Word: authoritarianism
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...notion that American action is unhelpful to reformers, this simply contradicts historical experience. Successful movements to alter authoritarian and totalitarian regimes almost always depend on internal dissent backed by strong international support. Those key factors are often required to get a regime's enablers - including domestic security forces - to lose confidence and eventually succumb...
...thing, the protest movement is being led by a faction of the Islamic Republic's political establishment, whose members stand to lose a great deal if the regime is brought down and thus have to calibrate their dissent. More important, an unarmed popular movement can topple an authoritarian regime only if the security forces switch sides or stay neutral. But Iran's key security forces - the élite Revolutionary Guards Corps and the Basij militia - are bastions of support for Ahmadinejad. And they have used hardly a fraction of their repressive power. Also, while the opposition draws far larger crowds...
...political system. Ahmadinejad's critics charged during the campaign that his provocative antics had undermined Iran's standing in the world, but he certainly functions to restrain any movement toward rapprochement, keeping in place the fear of the "Great Satan" that has been an organizing principle of Iran's authoritarian clerical regime...
...much as some Iranian conservatives may wish otherwise, the Islamic republic has never been able to seal tight state rule over society: it is a sloppy authoritarian state with elements of democracy. Iranian democracy may not be recognizably Western, but its dynamic seeps into the highest echelons of power, even if it is embodied in an instinct for consensus among a clerical élite with diverse opinions. It is a dynamic that even Khamenei has to answer...
Like any doting nonagenarian, López sang the praises of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. But she also recalled her opposition to Francisco Franco's authoritarian regime and grappled with contemporary political debates ranging from Basque separatism to Iran's nuclear ambitions. Her ingenuity and lively writing won her a sit-down in 2008 with Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero...