A Struggle for the Republican Party of Iran………….
“The strikes that broke out in the Tehran bazaar last week, while provoked by a proposed income tax increase, reflect the growing rift between the conservative factions, with the merchants, or bazaaris, on the side of the traditionalists. Mr. Ahmadinejad has often fed the traditional conservatives’ fears; he has referred to the divide among conservatives, warning that “the regime has only one party” in a speech published Monday on his official Web site that provoked outrage among his conservative rivals. …. In a sense, the power struggle among conservatives is a return to the status quo before last year’s presidential election, which unleashed the worst internal dissent Iran has experienced in decades. The street protests were widely seen in the West as a fundamental challenge to Iran’s theocracy. But after a year in which outpourings of public anger failed to effect tangible change, the dust has settled to once again reveal a more basic split within Iran’s political elite. The rift is partly a generational one, with Mr. Ahmadinejad leading a combative cohort of conservatives supported by Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards. On the other side is an older generation of leaders who derive their authority from their links to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979. Reformist lawmakers now represent a largely impotent minority in the Parliament. ……”
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