Iran: A Coup In Three Steps


	Iran: A Coup In Three Steps

mrobert

6-16-2009 9:33 AM

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tags:

iranian election, forbes, abbas milani

mrobert says:

Research fellow and Director of Iranian Studies at Stanford, Abbas Milani voices his view of the background to the Iranian situation in an article on Forbes.com

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<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/d4c38daa-5b28-4e6c-8f5b-eaa8684512a8/50258E2D-5E19-4B02-A1C0-848CED49BBFF/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://www.forbes.com/2009/06/15/iran-elections-khamenei-mousavi-ahmadinejad-opinions-contributors-milani.html" href="http://www.forbes.com/2009/06/15/iran-elections-khamenei-mousavi-ahmadinejad-opinions-contributors-milani.html" style="font-size: 11px;">www.forbes.com</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.forbes.com/2009/06/15/iran-elections-khamenei-mousavi-ahmadinejad-opinions-contributors-milani.html"><P>What happened in Iran last Friday was a fully planned but clumsily executed coup, intended to obliterate the last vestiges of democracy in the country. In 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini abducted the democratic revolution and instead of creating the free and inclusive republic he had promised during the months before the revolution--a republic, he said, that would have no clerics in any position of power--he established what he called <I>Velayat-e Fagih</I> or the rule of the Shiite Jurist. In this regime, a disproportionate share of power remains in the hands of an unelected cleric whose legitimacy rests not in the support of the people but of the divine. </P></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.forbes.com/2009/06/15/iran-elections-khamenei-mousavi-ahmadinejad-opinions-contributors-milani.html"><P>At the same time, Ayatollah Khomeini was forced to heed the overwhelmingly democratic aspirations of the people at the time by allowing for a presidency that was to be directly elected by the people. The constitution thus became--and remains--an incongruent mix of despotism and democracy. </P></blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/50258E2D-5E19-4B02-A1C0-848CED49BBFF/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content6.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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