The Iranian Death Spiral Resumes

So now the Ahmadinejad people and the Khamenei people are fighting it out in the streets of Tehran, as Reza tells us. Those who have followed this blog for some time will recognize it as the latest phase in what I call “The War of the Persian Succession,” a nasty fight over who will be the next Supreme Leader of Iran, after the passing of Khamenei.

Remember, too, that Mousavi — the leader of a Green Movement that is very much a player in this struggle — designed a strategy that would lead to the implosion of the regime, not its overthrow in a dramatic confrontation. He believes that the internal conflicts are so severe, that if only pressure can be maintained, the system will come down. He hoped that pressure would come from the West, but it didn’t (even though the sanctions have made life more difficult). So the process is slower than it might have been, but still moving along the lines he designed.

I think it is unlikely that one “faction” will definitively prevail over the other. The leader and the president are siamese twins, fused at a vital part of their anatomies, and separation might well be fatal to both. Each has weapons aimed at the other’s heart, and the weapons consist of information of massive fraud and theft.

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