Word: khamenei
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Friday's weekly Friday prayer service at Tehran University will have done a lot more than honor the onset of the Muslim sabbath. The country's Supreme Leader, Ayatullah Ali Khamenei, led the service himself and called for "peace and tranquility" and an end to the mass protests. He made his remarks in front of many thousands of people either in the campus or lining the surrounding streets in his first public address since the outcome of last Friday's disputed presidential election. He insisted there had been no fraud in the result, describing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's election...
Violence and the threat of violence have not deterred the demonstrators, and Mousavi is showing no inclination to back down just yet. Khamenei appears to be scrambling for a compromise that will persuade Mousavi to end the demonstrations while keeping Ahmadinejad in the presidency. But the outcome of the battle of wills may depend on how the key players read the balance of forces on the street and in the councils of the regime. The situation is delicately poised; what follows are four scenarios that could resolve...
...style crackdown would be a potentially fatal injury to the regime's sources of legitimacy: its limited but lively democracy and the backing of Shi'ite clergy. Discord among the mullahs is growing, with some senior clerics, like the esteemed house-arrested dissident Ayatullah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, publicly condemning Khamenei's handling of the election and warning ordinary soldiers and police officers that they would "answer to God" for any violence against the people. A crackdown would risk reducing a regime built on clerical authority and "managed" democracy to a tyranny on par with the Shah's. Khamenei will...
...Khamenei's "Divine" Retreat? Khamenei blundered when he yoked his position as Supreme Leader - which is typically above the factional fray of the regime's politics - so closely to Ahmadinejad. He issued a barely disguised public endorsement of the candidate and then rushed to proclaim Ahmadinejad's "divine victory" and order all Iranians to accept it. But the mounting instability on the streets appears to have sent Khamenei into retreat as he ordered the Guardian Council to investigate claims of electoral fraud. If the combination of escalating street demonstrations and the politicking of Mousavi's backers inside the regime...
...Zimbabwe" Option? The option that would probably hold the most appeal to Khamenei now would be brokering an agreement similar to the one that has kept Zimbabwe's President, Robert Mugabe, in power despite his essentially losing an election - by bludgeoning the opposition into settling for an important yet subordinate role in his government. Already, Khamenei has appealed to a sense of national unity and preserving the regime, hoping to cajole the opposition into accepting the results. And at his first press conference following the announcement of his victory, Ahmadinejad reportedly asked his opponents to submit lists of candidates...