Is Khamenei Still Supreme?
September 30, 2008 by Alexander
From China Confidential
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei may no longer be so supreme.
The turbaned tyrant is losing power to the mullahocracy’s maniac-in-chief, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and the Revolutionary Guards.
In fact, if the trend continues, Iran will be a mullahocracy in name only. Instead of a clerical fascist country, it will simply be fascist–with clerical backing.
So say a growing number of analysts, including some who have followed developments in Iran since the 1979 Islamic overthrow of the pro-American Shah, a modernizing monarch.
From a Western perspective, the suspected power shift is ominous. The Revolutionary Guards are even more militant than most of the mullahs–and more adventurous in terms of foreign policy. They are bent on developing nuclear weapons–and intercontinental ballistic missiles–with the aim of destroying Israel and driving the United States from the Middle East. Some members of Ahmadinejad’s inner circle actually believe that Iran can destroy the US, too, with a nuclear electromagnetic pulse attack.
