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The Iranian Regime after the Crackdown

[Weekly Standard] Reuel Marc Gerecht - The regime has regained control of the streets. Mousavi surely knows that Khamenei has, for now, decisively outflanked him. Hope for reform again appears a long-term affair. The influence of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iraq's preeminent cleric and probably the most respected Shiite jurist in the world, comes into play here. Iranian clerics have been free to go to Iraq on pilgrimage and for study since the fall of Saddam Hussein. Sistani, an Iranian by birth who still speaks Arabic with a Persian accent, has embraced democracy in Iraq. What's interesting is the potential appeal in Iran of the Iraqi model - the cultural and religious authority that comes from the Shiite tradition of keeping a certain distance from power, combined with a modern, moral embrace of democracy. The writer is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
2009-07-14 06:00:00
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