What's with the albeit small but still continuing protests in Iran and disobedient shit disturbing by several high ranking officials? Why can't Iran stomp out dissent the way China did? Because there's one unassailable authority in China, the monolithic communist party, it tolerates no shades of gray and you either obey its dictates or you are cast aside, often with the help of a firing squad. The putative unassailable authority in Iran is the clergy and although all that abide within are pretty much cut from the same cloth, that cloth is not all of one pattern - one design clashes with another and any rash attempt to unwind the insulting thread threatens the integrity of the whole garment [rode that metaphor right into the fucking ground].
But that's what troubles me about Iran: if the apostates succeed in upending the standing order of things how do they stop that change from overwhelming the whole? The change the apostates are after is essentially cosmetic and self aggrandizing - it is not a new order but merely the old order reconfigured - but the people out on the street want something more and I don't see how the apostates stop that dynamic since inevitably the whole idea of the legitimacy of Islamic governance will be questioned - and then what you'll have is a dangerously chaotic situation which will almost certainly invite an extremist backlash - which is why I maintain that no matter what happens Iran is destined to go through a period of increased intransigence. I don't see how anything that has happened improves, in the short term [and I'm talking 10-20 years] prospects for stability and better relations in the region.
An absolutist regime cannot allow dissent and hope to survive, which is why what's happening in Iran doesn't add up. Now, Iranians may be on the road to rejecting absolutism and that may in the end prove to be a good thing but in the interim is likely to prove disturbing. Does anyone actually believe should Rafsanjani wrest control of things from A--- that suddenly Iran is going to stop meddling in Iraq, stop financing Hezbullah and Hamas, stop a nuclear program that's probably about 90% complete, stop forcing women to wear the hijab, stop believing that the Koran and Islam are the final, unimpeachable arbiters of justice and truth? C'mon, people.
