Word: khameini
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...majority on a mandate of reform and democratization is unlikely to have any trouble winning the electorate's endorsement, and the sense of panic in the hard-line camp is evident: Tehran sources reveal that some in the hard-line camp are pressing the unelected spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameini, to quash Khatami's plan by declaring a state of emergency...
...militia killed eight Iranian diplomats and a journalist after capturing a predominantly Shiite town, and has worked together with Russia to support anti-Taliban opposition forces. Despite the overtures between the reformist president Mohammed Khatami and the West on ways of cooperating against terrorism, hard-line spiritual leader Ayatollah Khameini insisted that while Iran condemned the terror strikes in the U.S., Tehran could not support U.S. military action against Afghanistan. Still, whether working directly with the U.S. or not, Iran remains a key regional player in the anti-Taliban alliance...
...Scott MacLeod: Right now, there's no sign that the conservatives plan to go that far, and the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameini, who remains the supreme authority for the conservatives, has insisted that they respect the law and the constitution in their challenge to the reformers. Thus far they've restricted themselves to frustrating the reformers using quasi-legal and political steps. Once they used their legislative majority to block Khatami's reform efforts, but now they've lost that. Still, the Supreme Leader's injunction against using illegal means makes it unlikely that they'd resort to something...
...Absolutely. It's not in Khatami's interests to try and drive the conservatives out of politics altogether. He wants to remain at the center of an orderly political system, and to do that he needs to have the conservatives inside the political process. And the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khameini, has been trying to set himself apart from the factional infighting, trying to carve out a role of mediator when things get out of hand...
...different institutions and power centers," says TIME correspondent William Dowell. The country's highest political office is that of supreme spiritual leader, originally created for Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini after the revolution of 1979 - although conservatives and reformers differ sharply on how much direct political control he should exercise. Ayatollah Khameini leads the country's conservative faction, whose control of the Council of Guardians - a non-elected body of clerics that has the power to vet candidates and veto legislation - as well as over the judiciary, security services and the military, means they will still have much political power even...