The cracks in the cohesion of Iran’s theocratic regime have not closed. It is not mullah-watchers who are saying this but Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader, who has ordered radical and conservative fundamentalists who divide up Iran’s complex institutions to stop their feuding.
High Shia clerics such as Grand Ayatollah Yusef Sanei are already unhappy that an ostensibly religious regime actually built on vested interests is dragging Islam through the political dirt. A frontal attack on the clergy would be the last straw. The regime is beginning to look brittle, belying its triumph over reformism — and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is starting to look expendable.
Conservatives and reformists are angered by his disregard for institutions such as parliament, mismanagement of the economy and Holocaust denial provocations.
A west worried about Iran’s nuclear ambitions would be well advised to tread with care. Any attempt to determine the outcome of this faction fight would stampede everyone back into the tattered tent of the theocrats.
— Financial Times, London
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