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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RMF who wrote (35915)	6/26/2009 12:13:49 PM
From: TimF	1 Recommendation Respond to of 71588

You have different power centers in Iraq. You have the "supreme leader" and the guardian council. You have the military and security forces (regular military, revolutionary guard, basij, other police and security forces. You have the president and the government under him. You have the religious leaders in Qom. And you have the ordinary people. The people are disunited (some of them support the regime, others don't like it but don't want to oppose it. The military and security forces have a lot of raw power, but I don't see leadership within them trying to take control, for now they subordinate themselves to other powers. The religious leaders in Qom can only exercise power subtly, they can't openly, forcefully and effectively oppose those in charge now. The supreme leader, the ruling council, and the presidency/government seem to be working together for now, and the security forces are loyal to one or the other or both, so right now they are on top. To remove them from the top you would need one of the following. 1 - A massive mass revolution - Not likely any time soon the people are disunited and intimidated, and not armed. 2 - A coup - From what I can tell it doesn't seem likely. 3 - A fallout between different parts of the power structure, weakening it and leaving an opening for someone else. I don't see this happening either. The security forces seem loyal for now, and the "supreme leader" and the guardian council, seem to clearly be number one. They are working with Ahmadinejad, but if they didn't, then I don't think he has the power to oppose them (mainly since I think the revolutionary guard would go with them and the regular army wouldn't oppose them). So I think the regime is secure for now. Maybe weakened for the long term, but my guess is that they won't lose power or control soon.