Iran: October 25, 2004

Archives

less capable of invading Iran. A perverse policy, but not without logic. 

  The deadlock between the Islamic conservative minority (about 20 percent of the population) and the reform minded majority, continues. The Islamic conservatives are willing to use deadly force to keep power, and the majority is not yet willing to confront that force. But the way these things work, a bloody incident will eventually happen. Pictures of Islamic hardliners killing moderates will be taken, get sent to a foreign Iranian satellite television station, and the inflammatory images will be seen throughout the country. More and more of the meek majority will take up arms, and the Islamic hard liners will be forced to back down. This has happened many times before In Iranian history. What's different now is that there is no Iranian feudal aristocracy that, in the past, could more quickly mobilize sufficient force to get the religious leadership to retreat back into their