Khamenei says "Stop", but will they?

As the Supreme Ayatollah of Iran backs Ahmadinejad's dubious victory, that poll-rigging on the scale alleged is "impossible" and protests must stop, Nate Silver has some astute analysis about what could happen next:

In theory, the word of the Supreme Leader is final on issues such as these, provided that the Constitution of Iran is obeyed, and the Assembly of Experts do not take action to impeach/dismiss the Leader - something they have never done. However, the Guardian Council, which plays a significant role in the electoral process, has accepted challenges to the results by all three candidates, undermining Khameni's proclamation of Ahmadinejad's victory.

At the same time, Chairman of the Assembly of Experts Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former two-term President and rival of Ahmadinejad, has publicly declared his belief that Mousavi is the true winner, and that significant fraud was perpetrated by the Ahmadinejad camp. As Chairman of the Assembly, Rafsanjani has used his mandate of "supervision of the Supreme Leader" to challenge the official declaration.

Finally, the Majlis - the Iranian Parliament - has taken issue with the harsh treatment of demonstrators by authorities in the days after the election. While most of the chamber issued their congratulations to the incumbent immediately after the vote totals were released, many have since pulled back. While the least influential of the institutions, the Majlis has supported the opposition protests and calls for democratic redress more directly than any other.

In summary, the key question will be if the Supreme Leader can regain order among the top leaders before the political dialogue shifts towards a serious challenge to the system. If the protests can be stopped, and Ahmadinejad's victory is seen as inevitable, many political leaders who would prefer to see reform will pull back from their opposition in order to protect themselves from retribution. If, however, public outcry and internal fighting in the regime continues following today's proclamation, some change in the leadership, though likely minor at first, may be on the horizon.

To a large extent, I think the protests have now become self-led and self-perpetuating. Not even crackdowns are going to halt them and too heavy a hand from the conservative establishment will actually inflame protestors even more towards actual revolution, rather than just restoration of the Islamic Republic, following Ahmadinejad's attempted coup. On the other hand, power-brokers like Rafsanjani and Mousavi see their own well-feathered nests as very definitely under threat (and maybe their own necks too) if Ahmadinejad comes out undisputably on top. They'll be exerting pressure for protests to continue too. I just don't see the Supreme Leader saying "stop" and being listened to at this stage. That, in itself, is a sea change in Iranian domestic politics.

But that's domestic politics - and the protests have a life of their own probably immune by now from foreign polemic. Still, American conservative hardliners are plain wrong when they take to the pages of various news outlets to call for Obama and Congress to lead a crusade of rhetoric against the Iranian incumbent which will inevitably lead to - Iraq-like in their fantasy world - an outbreak of free democracy in a domino-rush across the region. For a start, there's the dead certainty that neither Mousavi nor any of his elite backers are all that interested in liberal democracy as we understand it. For a second, while whatever the US now says can't derail the protests any push from America certainly won't help all that much either. Take the resolution on Iran which has just passed in the House by 405-1, for example. Hadi Ghaemi of the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran recently told Spencer Ackerman:

�We do want to generate international support along the lines of the resolution, but we do not want to give an excuse to the Iranian government and leadership, just as the Iranian leader said today� that the Iranian opposition movement is foreign-backed. �It�s very hard to tell people not to support people� in the opposition, but he said that he wishes that the Congress� call could have been �done much more multilaterally.�

I do seem to recall, though, that during the Bush years similiar attempts by Congressional Democrats to influence the White House were labelled by the right as trampling on the constitution, in that they undermined the President's constitutional perogative to determine his administration's, and the nation's, foreign policy course. I never agreed with that, and I'm glad to see Republicans don't any more either - even if I disagree with them and their Dem colleagues that such resolutions will be helpful to Iranians.