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Elections Won't Change Iran

(Financial Times-UK) Ray Takeyh - While the race to succeed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as Iran's president is infused with intrigue and drama, lest anyone confuse Iran's contest for real democracy, the regime has ample mechanisms at its disposal to ensure the "election" of its preferred candidate. Ultimately, the decision about who will govern is likely to be made in the Islamic Republic's back rooms rather than its voting booths. The politician who has generated the most excitement in Western chancelleries is former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. As president, when confronted with conservative resistance he quickly retreated. He remained devoted to terrorism as an instrument of statecraft. As the father of Iran's bomb, he did much to reconstitute the nuclear program while speaking the language of moderation. Ayatollah Khamenei may yet settle on his nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, who is known to be slavishly devoted to the supreme leader, a stern ideologue and a man of limited intelligence. In the deformed political society that Khamenei has created, such qualifications constitute ideal credentials for promotion to the office of the presidency. The writer is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
2013-05-21 00:00:00
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