Iran is still on only its 2nd Supreme Leader, Khamenei since ‘89. The future?

[PSOL]

Khamenei has basically thrown any Gorbachevs in prison or house arrest, he’s basically ensured that the Islamic republic will survive unchanged when he’s alive.

[PSOL]

Khamenei has basically thrown any Gorbachevs in prison or house arrest, he’s basically ensured that the Islamic republic will survive unchanged when he’s alive.

The question is what happens if he's still in office when he loses (enough of) his powers. Mugabe seems like the realistic good ending for him, especially if he hasn't a natural successor.

The IRGC is his private army in the worst possible circumstances before getting to that point.

[PSOL]

Ahmadinejad was actually much more of a threat to the establishment than Rouhani, who was ultimately very conservative. Firebrand populists are a bigger problem than moderate clerics. He often contradicts state policy, like the fact he supports Ukraine and said "the [Ukrainian] resistance uncovered the Satanic plots of enemies of mankind."

What, I love Ahmadinejad now.

When I compared the current war with the Iran-Iraq war, I wasn’t kidding. Same dynamics, same rational responses anyone should have.

[PSOL]

Ahmadinejad was actually much more of a threat to the establishment than Rouhani, who was ultimately very conservative. Firebrand populists are a bigger problem than moderate clerics. He often contradicts state policy, like the fact he supports Ukraine and said "the [Ukrainian] resistance uncovered the Satanic plots of enemies of mankind."

If Ahmadinejad had been President ten years later, you would have had a Trump/Ahmadinejad summit.

Iranian politics is not really being driven by ideology anymore so much as clique-based power struggles, and Khamenei's clique is operating a threat matrix based not on who is potentially a threat to him, but who is a potential threat to a preferred successor. Raisi/Mojtaba are fairly weak figures, so that requires treating pretty much anyone with any independent power-base as a threat.

Bold of you to assume that it ever was.