Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Luttwak sulla crisi iraniana

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124580553688545019.html
Iran's Regime Will Never Be the Same
By EDWARD N. LUTTWAK
At this point, only the short-term future of Iran's clerical regime
remains in doubt. The current protests could be repressed, but the
unelected institutions of priestly rule have been fatally undermined.
Though each aspect of the Islamic Republic has its own dynamic, this
is not a regime that can last many more years.
When it comes to repression, Iran has a spectrum of security
instruments that can be used synergistically. The national police can
take care of routine crowd control; riot-police units can beat some
demonstrators in order to discourage others; the much more brutal,
underclass Basij militiamen enjoy striking and shooting affluent
Iranians; and the technical arm of the regime can block cellular
service to disrupt demonstrations, as well as stall Internet services.
If the protests were to seriously escalate, the Revolutionary Guard
troops with their armored vehicles might also be called in, though at
some risk to the regime, given that reformist presidential candidate
Mohsen Rezai was their longtime commander. The alternative -- calling
in the regular army -- would be much more risky since the loyalty of
the generals is unknown. So far the regime has required neither.
What has undermined the very structure of the Islamic Republic is the
fracturing of its ruling elite. It was the unity established by
Ayatollah Khomeini that allowed the regime to dominate the Iranian
people for almost 30 years. Now that unity has been shattered: The
very people who created the institutions of priestly rule are
destroying their authority.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's leading rival for the presidency, Mir Hossein
Mousavi, was prime minister from 1981-89 when the Islamic Republic
acquired its administrative structure, including its unelected head,
the supreme leader. Though the supreme leader must be obeyed in all
things, Mr. Mousavi now flatly rejects the orders of Ali Khamenei to
accept Ahmadinejad's re-election. In this, Mr. Mousavi is joined by
another presidential candidate, former parliament speaker and pillar
of the establishment Mehdi Karroubi, and a yet more senior founder of
the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ali Akbar Rafsanjani. President from
1989-97, Mr. Rafsanjani is also chairman of the Assembly of Experts,
whose 86 members choose the supreme leader and can ostensibly remove
him.
During the campaign, Ahmadinejad accused Mr. Rafsanjani and his
children of corruption on live television. So if Ahmadinejad's re-
election is to be "definitive" and even "divine," as Supreme Leader
Khamenei has declared, Mr. Rafsanjani would have to resign from all
his posts and his children would have to leave Iran. Instead, he is
reportedly trying to recruit a majority of the Assembly of Experts to
remove Khamenei, or at least force him to order new elections.
The other key undemocratic institution of the Islamic Republic,
founded in part by Messrs. Mousavi and Rafsanjani, is the 12-member
Council of Guardians that can veto any laws passed by the elected
parliament and any candidate for the parliament or the presidency. In
recent years, the Council has persistently sided with extremists and
Ahmadinejad, using its veto powers aggressively. Supreme Leader
Khamenei logically chose the Council to deal with the election
dispute.
Last week, the Council of Guardians announced that it might recount
10% of the ballots and summoned Messrs. Mousavi, Karroubi and Rezai.
All three rejected the recount offer, and only Mr. Rezai showed up
before the Council. Messrs. Mousavi and Karroubi simply refused to
appear, explicitly denying the Council's authority as well as that of
the supreme leader.
This is highly significant. Were it not for the office of the supreme
leader and the Council, Iran would be a normal democratic republic.
In theory, if Ahmadinejad, Khamenei and the extremists of the Council
of Guardians were all replaced by consensus figures, the Islamic
Republic could continue as before. But in practice, that is
impossible. Huge numbers of Iranians haven't been demonstrating at
risk of beatings and worse for the uncharismatic and only marginally
moderate Mr. Mousavi. His courage under pressure has certainly raised
his popularity, but he is still no more than the accidental symbol of
an emerging political revolution.
What's clear is that after years of humiliating social repression and
gross economic mismanagement, the more educated and the more
productive citizens of Iran have mostly turned their backs on the
regime. Even if personally religious, they now reject the entire
post-1979 structure of politicized Shiite Islam with its powerful
ayatollahs, officious priests, strutting Revolutionary Guards and low-
life Basij militiamen. Many Iranians once inclined to respect clerics
now view them as generally corrupt -- including the Ahmadinejad
supporters who applauded his attacks on Mr. Rafsanjani.
Had Mr. Mousavi won the election, modest steps to liberalize the
system -- he would have allowed women to go out with uncovered heads,
for example -- would only have triggered demands for more change,
eventually bringing down the entire system of clerical rule. In the
Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev's very cautious reforms designed to
perpetuate the Communist regime ended up destroying it in less than
five years. In Iran, the system is much newer, and the process would
likely have been faster.
Some important clerics have long suggested that men of religion should
strive to regain popular respect by voluntarily giving up political
power. That may provide a way out eventually. But for now, Supreme
Leader Khamenei is in the impossible position of having to support a
president whose authority is not accepted by much of the governing
structure itself. Even the extremist Parliament Speaker Ali Larjani
has declared that the vote count was biased.
Therefore, even if he remains in office, Ahmadinejad cannot really
function as president. For one thing, the parliament is unlikely to
confirm his ministerial appointments, and he cannot govern without
them. If Khamenei is not removed by the Assembly of Experts and
Ahmadinejad is not removed by Khamenei, the government will continue
to be paralyzed.
The great news is that, below the eroding machinery of priestly rule,
the essential democratic institutions in Iran are up and running and
need only new elections for the presidency and the parliament.

 By EDWARD N. LUTTWAK
ma quest'imbecille ancora parla? Vabbè che con Merdoch la feccia avrà
sempre un pasto caldo..