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Steady Drip of Leaks Corrodes the Core of the Iranian Regime

(New York Times) Michael Slackman - Beatings, arrests, show trials and even killings have failed to discourage Iranians from taking to the streets in protest. But those same tactics may be taking a toll on the government itself, eating away at its legitimacy even among its core of insiders, Iran experts are saying. The evidence? Leaks about private meetings of the intelligence services and Revolutionary Guards; an embarrassing memo from state-owned television on how to cover the protests; a note about how the security services have been using petty criminals to fill out the ranks of pro-government demonstrations. "Since June, there has been much anecdotal evidence that suggests deep divisions between the hard-line commanders of the Guards and between the Guards and members of the regular armed forces who are dissatisfied with the election and its aftermath," said Alireza Nader, an analyst with the RAND Corporation. At the moment, at least, few if any experts are predicting that the government will fall. "There is enough commitment to the survival of the Islamic republic among an array of forces in the government and society to assure the continued use of repression and violence," said Farideh Farhi, an Iran expert at the University of Hawaii. "But it is precisely the ineffectiveness of the methods used in controlling the crowds, combined with the unsuccessful effort on the part of some very hard-line forces to cleanse the Iranian political system of all rivals, that may persuade some leaders to change their minds."
2010-01-07 08:52:06
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