Rouhani addresses a rally on May 6. Source: Iran Presidential Palace
Amin Saikal, Task & Purpose: The Strengths And Weaknesses That Will Shape Iran's Future
Despite being resilient, the Islamic Republic has been fraught with vital weaknesses, contradictions, and vulnerabilities on both domestic and foreign policy fronts.
The two-tiered system of governance has not worked as well as its founder, Ayatollah Khomeini, had intended, giving rise to serious political bifurcation and factionalism, power and personal rivalries, patronage building, bureaucratic and administrative malfunctioning, and systematic corruption. The Islamic system has fostered unpredictable, ad hoc, and uneven processes of social and economic change, electoral irregularities, and state repression. It has, finally, caused a growing gulf between the ruling elites and the public, corresponding to a state-society dichotomy that has alienated many citizens, especially among the post-revolution generation, from the regime, its conservative clerical strands in particular. Although these outcomes have been accentuated since Khomeini's death, they have their foundations in the way that he structured and operationalized the Islamic Republic.
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WNU Editor: A good overview on the current state of affairs in Iran.
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