Assembly of Terror Experts...

The international media (take your pick) have been tripping over each other, in casting yesterday's municipal and national elections in Iran as a referendum on mullahs' president, December 15, 2006. This is called ignorance in any other guise. The New York Times, Dec. 16, is predicting " Big Voter Turnout Seen in Iran, Giving Reformers a Boost". It is those elusive reformers again. Iran, per capita, has likely more elections that any other country on Earth. It is also on the very opposite end of democracy scale. The mullahs have a Supreme leader who has the final say, the Guardian Council (12 mullahs) who select who runs as a candidate, Assembly of Experts (82 mullahs and like-minded folks), the Parliamant, the President, the Cabinet, and the armed forces, and finally to circle the wagon, the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij, who, well are entities to themselves and report to no one other than the supreme leader. This is what the media cals a "complex power structure."

The one group that selects the Supreme Leader is the Assembly of Experts (Majlis e Khobregan). Its members are being elected as we write this. To get an insight into how these men, yes they're all men, think, here's what Ahmadi-nejad's choice from the city of Qom- the center of mullahs' learning- has put it, "The basis of a republic is people’s votes and people’s demands and views. However, in an Islamic state the basis is God’s rulings which are defined by jurisprudents and ulema [religious scholars/clerics]... If it (an Islamic system) is not popular, it does not lose its legitimacy... If people accept such a system, then legitimacy and popularity are together." (Mohsen Gharavian in the Financial Times, December 15, 2006). Got it?