As Iran Calms, a Struggle for Political Power Intensifies - NYT

[WillyT]

As Iran Calms, a Struggle for Political Power Intensifies
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN
Published: July 7, 2009

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CAIRO — The streets of Iran have been largely silenced, but a power struggle grinds on behind the scenes, this time over the very nature of the state itself. It is a battle that transcends the immediate conflict over the presidential election, one that began 30 years ago as the Islamic Revolution established a new form of government that sought to blend theocracy and a measure of democracy.

From the beginning, both have vied for an upper hand, and today both are tarnished. In postelection Iran, there is growing unease among many of the nation’s political and clerical elite that the very system of governance they rely on for power and privilege has been stripped of its religious and electoral legitimacy, creating a virtual dictatorship enforced by an emboldened security apparatus, analysts said.

Among the Iranian president’s allies are those who question whether the nation needs elected institutions at all.

Most telling, and arguably most damning, is that many influential religious leaders have not spoken out in support of the beleaguered president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Indeed, even among those who traditionally have supported the government, many have remained quiet or even offered faint but unmistakable criticisms.

According to Iranian news reports, only two of the most senior clerics have congratulated Mr. Ahmadinejad on his re-election, which amounts to a public rebuke in a state based on religion. A conservative prayer leader in the holy city of Qum, Ayatollah Ibrahim Amini, referred to demonstrators as “people” instead of rioters, and a hard-line cleric, Grand Ayatollah Nasser Makarem-Shirazi, called for national reconciliation.

Some of Iran’s most influential grand ayatollahs, clerics at the very top of the Shiite faith’s hierarchy who have become identified with the reformists, have condemned the results as a fraud and the government’s handling of the protests as brutal. On Saturday, an influential Qum-based clerical association called the new government illegitimate.

Yet Ayatollah Khamenei, Mr. Ahmadinejad and their allies still have a monopoly over the most powerful levers of state. They control the police, the courts and the prosecutor’s office. They control the military and the militia forces. And they retain the loyalty of a core group of powerful clerics and their conservative followers: for example, a hard-line cleric who heads the Qum Seminary, Ayatollah Morteza Moghtadai, said on Tuesday that “the case is closed.” No one, not even restive clerics, is in a position to strip this group of its power in the short term.

But the long term is what is in play as this conflict evolves.

“In the short term, the dictatorial aspect of the regime is going to have the upper hand,” said Muhammad Sahimi, a professor at the University of Southern California who has a network of contacts in Iran to keep him up to date. “If there is a next election, I don’t believe a lot of people will vote, simply because they don’t trust the system. But at the same time, this reinforced the reform movement and democratic movement, which already existed, and really made them stronger, in my view, in the long term.”

For now, Iran’s most hard-line forces have been emboldened. Mr. Ahmadinejad’s spiritual adviser, Ayatollah Muhammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi, has said elected institutions are anathema to a religious government and should be no more than window dressing.

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More: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/08/world/middleeast/08clerics.html?_r=2&hp

:kick:

[varelse]

1. Kick and rec

let's see how many Micheal Jackson themed threads this one can jump over ;)