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How Supreme Is Iran's Supreme Leader?

[Washington Institute for Near East Policy] Patrick Clawson and Mehdi Khalaji - Reports that Ayatollah Ali Meshkini has either died or is on the brink of death shed light on the nature of power in Iran. Meshkini is speaker of the Assembly of Experts - a body that, despite its traditionally minor role in Iranian politics, is constitutionally empowered to not only elect a new Supreme Leader if the post becomes vacant, but also to dismiss a sitting leader. Current Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei cannot be pleased that this body may now be headed by deputy speaker Ali Akbar Rafsanjani, a former president known to be a wily comeback artist. In the event that Khamenei dies, the new Supreme Leader would most likely be a compromise candidate rather than either of the two polarizing figures said to want the post: Rafsanjani, a technocrat, and Ayatollah Muhammad Taqi Mesbah Yazdi, an extreme hardliner openly dismissive of democracy. The senior clerics, the Majlis, the technocracy, and the revolutionary power structure (i.e., the IRGC, Basij, and the foundations that control the economy) all share a common interest in a weak leader with limited ability to check them.
2007-07-26 01:00:00
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