Iran's Growing Societal Chasm

[IndianaGreen]

06/15/2009

AFTER THE ELECTION

Iran's Growing Societal Chasm

By Dieter Bednarz

Thousands of Iranians took to the streets in Tehran to protest the results of Friday's presidential election. The opposition may abhor re-elected President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei is also a target -- the result of a growing split in Iranian society.

The success of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was never predicated on his authority as a religious scholar. There are a number of Shiite clerics who are superior to him in the pecking order. Charisma is also not a characteristic frequently associated with Iran's religious leader.

Rather, Khamenei's power stems largely from his skills as a strategist. Since his election as the almost untouchable leader of the Islamic republic in 1989, Khamenei has proven remarkably adept at courting his political opponents, thereby avoiding open conflict. Few pursued consensus as arduously as Khamenei.

In recent years, however, as this consensus has become more virtual than real, the position of Iran's leader has been eroded. Indeed, the current street battles are symptomatic of that erosion. Tears in the country's religious establishment have become ever more visible in Iran's recent past, the gap between the country's rich and poor has widened, and the chasm between the Western-oriented youth and the religious fanatics has deepened. Indeed, the current crisis could very well spell the beginning of the end for the Khamenei system.

Even More Ominous

The demonstrations in Tehran and elsewhere are not just in protest against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was declared the official winner of Friday presidential elections despite opposition concerns that the election was fixed. Rather, the protest is also against Khamenei himself, a leader who has lost all connection to large swaths of younger Iranians. He seems not to have noticed the yearning for more openness, more freedom -- and for jobs with a future.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,630464,00.html

[dalaigh lllama]

1. That seemed like a good analysis

hard to know whose opinion is worth anything, but this guy seemed to at least have a clue as to the behind-the-scene machinations.