Iran: "The argument on both sides has stayed narrowly within the bounds of Islam"

This New York Times analysis of the situation in Iran points out that both sides are grounding their values firmly within traditional Shi'ite Islam. This demonstrates once again that very little is likely to change in the country even if Ahmedinejad and Khameini end up being overthrown. And when the "reformist" Mousavi says that the Iranian miltary are "protectors of our revolution and our regime", it doesn't take a genius to join the dots.

Barring the Pahlavi period between 1925 and 1979, Iranian culture has remained essentially unchanged, in the form of a despotic Shi'ite Islamic theocracy, since the sixteenth century. And so it will remain for a while yet.