Yet another scary Iran Scenario

Commentary By Ron Beasley

As Steve pointed out below we really don't have a clue as to what's going on in Iran.  Sully brings us some very unofficial results that show  Mousavi did indeed win and that Ahmadinejad came in a poor third.  If that's true Rick Moran suggests that it may be even worse than a stolen election, it may have been a coup and a well planned one at that.

Ahmadinejad�s connections to some very powerful elements in the Revolutionary Guards may have given him something no Iranian president has had previously; an independent power base in the Guards. Would it be enough to challenge Khamenei for control of the Guards? Khamenei has the senior leadership but perhaps some junior officers would be more loyal to Ahmadinejad. It is pure speculation but not without merit as Middle East expert Gordon Robinson writes:

Scenario Two: There has been a coup. Ahmedinejad and the security services have taken over. The Supreme Leader has been preserved as a figurehead, but the structures of clerical rule have effectively been gutted and are being replaced by a National Security State. Reports that facebook, twitter, text messaging and foreign TV broadcasts have been blocked, that foreign journalists are being expelled and that large concrete roadblocks (the kind that require a crane to move) have appeared in front of the Interior Ministry all feed a sense that what we are now seeing was pre-planned. Underlying this is the theory that Ahmedinejad and the people around him represent a new generation of Iranian leadership. He and his colleagues were young revolutionaries in 1979. Now in their 50s they have built careers inside the Revolutionary Guard and the other security services. They may be committed to the Islamic Republic as a concept, but they are not part of its clerical aristocracy and are now moving to push the clerics into an essentially ceremonial role. This theory in particular seems to be gaining credibility rapidly among professional Iran-watchers outside of the country.

If a coup, this is very, very bad news for the US and especially Israel. It is thought that Khamenei was something of a steadying force who countered Ahmadinejad�s extreme radicalism with a more traditional and less confrontational approach. Several times over the last 4 years, Khamenei has appeared to slap down Ahmadinejad when he went too far, contradicting some wild pronouncements made by the president (he never intervened when Ahmadinejad threatened Israel). If that brake is gone, the Iranian president becomes very unpredictable.

Not everyone is going to be excited about this and a low level civil war will result.  Is Ahmadinejad�s power base strong enough to allow him to maintain power?