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Source: https://www.inss.org.il/publication/third-iranian-republic/
Will We See a Transition in Iran from the Rule of Clerics to Rule by the Revolutionary Guards?
(Institute for National Security Studies-Tel Aviv University) Raz Zimmt - In an interview with Euronews Persian in early January, political commentator Saeed Laylaz assessed that Iran may soon undergo a political transformation driven by the emergence of a new leader from within the system. Laylaz - who had served as an adviser to former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami - asserted that the Islamic Republic has reached a dead end but still lacks a viable alternative, as no opposition is capable of seizing power. There has been a significant erosion over the years in the standing of the clerical establishment. Secularization in Iranian society - especially among the younger generation - together with the growing alienation many citizens feel toward clerics due to the politicization of the religious establishment since the revolution; the identification of clerics with a governing system perceived as failing and corrupt; the uncompromising positions of hardline clerics; and the relatively comfortable economic status of senior clerics - all have contributed to a marked decline in their standing and even to displays of public hostility toward clerics in the public sphere. The burning of hundreds of mosques during the most recent wave of protests in Iran provided another expression of the intensity of public hostility toward religious institutions. The repeated protests over the past decade are no longer isolated expressions of economic distress; rather, they reflect a deep and enduring crisis of legitimacy. Slogans heard in the streets against the leader, religious institutions, and the Islamic Republic itself testify to a fundamental rupture between the public and its founding values. The writer is Director of the Iran and the Shiite Axis research program at INSS.