The Iranian regime is currently facing one of the greatest challenges of its 30-year history. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei--whose rule has been absolute and whose words have been the law of the land--is facing the most public challenge to his authority. His two decades since succeeding Ayatollah Khomeini have been defined by a tendency to keep his options open, a verbal dexterity that allowed him to skirt tough political positions, and an appearance of impartiality in Iran's fierce factional feuds. His caution has been the key to his success and survival.
But Khamenei has thrown this caution to the wind by unabashedly favoring Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Four years ago, his support was instrumental in getting the little-known Ahmadinejad elected president. Even as criticism of the president has been on the rise in the country over the past year, Khamenei reportedly promised Ahmadinejad and his cabinet four more years at the helm.
The ayatollah failed to recognize the mounting tension over this month's presidential election--what former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani described in a pre-election letter to him as a seething "volcano" of discontent. Even Sobhe-Sadeq, the political organ of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, warned in a lead editorial that the opposition's use of the color green had become dangerously similar to the kind of "color revolution" that dethroned governments in Ukraine, Lebanon, and Georgia. (Khamenei had even commissioned a group of scholars three years ago to investigate the evolution of these "color revolutions.")
Only hours after the polls closed, Khamenei issued a statement urging everyone to support the supposedly reelected president. Khamenei seems to have underestimated Ahmadinejad's opponent, Mir Hossein Mousavi, who has proved willing to defy, if not challenge, Khamenei's dictates. Following Mousavi's lead, angry demonstrators swiftly took to the streets, with protests erupting in major cities and universities across the country. On Monday, June 15, hundreds of thousands of Iranians flooded the streets of Tehran to protest the election results. - CBS News Story
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