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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (9946)	11/12/2001 12:46:39 AM
From: Raymond Duray	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi Hawk, Re: I may be wrong, but Iran has the potential of being the next secular muslim state, following the Turkish model. Certainly the potential, but I wonder about the will. I was very surprised when I studied up a bit on the structure of the Iranian government and came to an understanding of just how weak the democratic aspects of their government really are. The prime minister and the parliament are largely just window dressing, with the real power being held by the court system by and large. And the court system being utterly controlled by the clerics. What we are told of liberalization of Iran here in the West sounds much more encouraging than the actual facts of power politics within Iran would seem to indicate. That said, Iran does have a remarkable ability to turn on a dime, as we saw in 1979. So I'm not completely ruling out a radical transformation of the governance of the country. I merely want to make the point that it will not come about in an election, or in the normal processes of legislative change that we've come to expect as the norm in the West. -Ray