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The regime's intent is clear but risky

by FG on Mon Nov 16, 2009 12:07 PM PST

When Mesbah Yazdi, just days before the election, issued a fatwa authorized vote rigging as divinely sanctioned he revealed exactly what Khamenei intended on June 12th.  Thus if you want to know what ruling hardliners plan to do should the Assembly of Experts give up on Khamenei, read Zelour’s remarks closely.

Nevertheless Khamnei’s latest doctrine is a risky one:

RISK #1:  If everything else in the constitution is invalid whenever Khamenei waves his Magic Wanger, why should Valiy-e-Faghih be an exception?  

I notice a pick and choose approach whenever this regime cites Khoumeini‘s words.  Passages that support dictatorship are “sacred.”  Passages that warn against it subject to “reinterpretation to fit new times and needs.”   Whose needs exactly?

RISK #2:  Will Khamenei’s latest doctrine force moderate leaders of the Green Movement to face reality?  To eliminate valiy-e-Faghih is to eliminate the Islamic Republic.  To keep it is to guarantee that thirty years of horrors will be repeated in time. 

RISK #3: How will the Assembly of Experts react?   Will the new doctrine cause enough conservatives to switch sides.  When does enough become enough?

RISK #4: In the above case the more massive the public reaction, the more the regime will need to rely on rank and file troopers living among the people they will be asked to stomp.      

RISK #5: The regime still claims to be an Islamic “republic” even if the new doctrine eliminates every right associated with a republic.  Will it fool anyone?   Khamenei’s position has become identical to that of Mesbah Yadzi.  The sole difference is that one still insists on fig leaves while the other says, “Don’t bother.“

At its core the Islamic Republic has always relied on a heresy which Khamenei now seeks to compound.  The doctrine of Valiy-e-Faghih,  like the “divine right” of kings and the papal doctrine of “infallibility,” are Johnny-Come-Lately contrivances devised by men not god to serve an identical purpose.  They “legitimatize” claims to absolute power by inventing God’s “support.“ All three doctrines can find no support for that claim either in history or holy books.