With Ahmadinejad and his ultranationalists out of the picture, all obstacles to Sayyed Khameini’s offspring, Mojtanba, as successor appear to have vanished. Only the downfall of the Islamic Republic can stop it now. Who or what else can prevent it?
–Probably NOT the Iranian people who had the regime on the ropes right after the rigged election but screwed up by backing off and ignoring workers and the poor.
–Certainly NOT the Assembly of Experts or Guardian Council (loaded with “Khamenei-style” extremists).
–Certainly NOT the Larijanis and other so-called “moderate” principalists (They echoed calls for the blood of protestors after the elections and have been Khamenei’s obsequious toadies ever since).
–Certainly NOT the IRCG generals who favor Mojtaba so they can continue to feed at the trough (Mojtana is very close to IRCG general Taeb who personally raped and murdered one female protestor after the election).
All Middle East dictator, “holy” or otherwise, seek to emulate North Korea’s Kim Jong-ILL at succession time. See Egypt (the Mubarels), Yemen (the Selehs), Iraq (Saddam’s two sweet boys), Libya (the Khaddafis) and Iran (the Khameneis).
“But Iran is different.” Khamenei tells us. “Unlike those cases the people REALLY do love the Great Leader.” That’s exactly what other dictators assured us. Who believes them now?
A central goal of the 1979 revolution was to get rid of absolute and hereditary monarchy and replace it with a democracy that gave power to the people and respected human rights. After Islamist hard liners stole the revolution, Iranians ended up with a far more brutal regime. Like the mullahs, the Shah took away political freedoms, but at least he left social and personal freedoms untouched. Both regimes were economically corrupt but the Shah’s was at least competent in that area. Iran had the fastest growing economy in the world in the late seventies. The mullahs have succeeded in keeping Iranians poor and unemployed but they are much wealthier these days. Most amusing of all: The mullahs have made people distrust Islam and its clerics in a way the Shah could never have imagined.
What model offers less for the people than Iran in this Arab Spring. Islamist parties everywhere disassociate itself from wanting anything similar. Yet suspicions linger. They know the clerics stole one revolution, so why not another?
