If the past year in Iran were a Hollywood movie, the audience would be unsettled by now. The preening villain appears to have come out on top, and it's increasingly difficult to see how he'll get his comeuppance before the credits roll. But those Iranians seeking to free their country from the repressive rule of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his backers can't expect instant gratification; instead, they appear to be planning for an epic tale that plays out over years.
Exactly a year ago, Ahmadinejad, and the Supreme Leader Ayatullah Ali Khamenei who abandoned the electoral neutrality required of his office and openly backed the incumbent, were facing a street rebellion on the scale that brought down the Shah of Iran in 1979. One key conservative estimated that 3.5 million people had joined the wave of protests against Ahmadinejad's disputed reelection on June 12. The vicious repression that followed created the most serious political crisis in the history of the Islamic regime, its fissures running deep inside the corridors of political and clerical power. A regime founded on a balance between clerical rule and limited representative democracy was seen to give way to naked authoritarianism, with the Revolutionary Guard playing a central political role, and that alienated even many conservative clerical and political figures.
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