Soaal

"Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers."
-Voltaire

There are many things that I can’t quite make sense of in Iranian politics. I think, however, rather than come up with my own conspiratorial theories, it’s better to put the questions out there and maybe someone more knowledgeable will know. I am fascinated by political history and dynamics and would appreciate serious responses and references that can help me make sense of Iran.

Reference article:  //www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/17/iran-m...

1.    Did Khatami choose to step out of the election or was he forced out?
2.    Why did he step out of the election?
3.    Why did Mousavi choose to run?
4.    Was Mousavi’s social base similar to Ahmadinejad as the article stated?
5.    What was the relationship between Khamenei and Mousavi? How similar are their ideologies?
6.    If the election was defrauded, who orchestrated the fraud?
7.    Under the assumption that Mousavi’s ideology is relatively similar to that of Khamenei, and the second assumption that the election was defrauded, and orchestrated under Kahmenei and an underlying assumption that the IRI wants to preserve/maximize power—Why would Khamenei run the risk of destabilizing the IRI?
8.    Has the fallout from the election and accompanying protests destabilized the IRI?
9.    Was this fallout anticipated by the government? Was it a desired/undesired outcome?
10.    Why did the government and associated militia choose to escalate societal tension by using violent tactics against protestors, when they could diffuse it instead (as others have done)?

I literally have about 100 questions which I’ll post over the next ten days, but I’ll post these up to start. The language may be illiterate, problematic, weak, biased etc. With your feedback I’ll try to revise that for future sets of questions.