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Mullahs and Generals

[National Interest] Hossein Askari - The Iranian regime's claim of religious legitimacy is no longer credible. Iranians did not sacrifice their lives in a revolution and in a brutal eight-year war with Iraq to have their freedom stolen by a supreme leader and a president. Shia Muslims see it as their duty to reject an oppressive regime. The cycle of demonstrations will not stop, and if stopped by force, the opposition will go underground as it did under the shah. The senior religious establishment will not give its support to the supreme leader or to President Ahmadinejad. The regime has lost its appeal to the Muslim masses outside of Iran. The brutality of the regime has bared its ugliness for the whole world to see. The government may survive for a few weeks, months, or even for a few years, not as an Islamic Republic but as a military dictatorship. The writer is the Iran Professor of Business and International Affairs at George Washington University.
2009-08-06 06:00:00
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