Iran’s leader faces clerical discontent

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran’s supreme leader has imposed his will on the streets with security forces that crushed mass protests over the country’s disputed election. But he faces an unprecedented level of behind-the-scenes political discontent among the Muslim clerics who form the theological bedrock of the Islamic Republic.

The bitterness could represent a deeper, long-term challenge to the rule of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The outright rejection by some clerics of election results that Khamenei ruled valid breaks a basic taboo against criticizing the man who in the philosophy of the Islamic Revolution literally represents God’s rule on earth.

Khamenei’s political strategy since taking his position in 1989 has been to maintain a consensus among competing factions. But now to preserve power, he may have to rely on a far narrower base of hard-line ayatollahs — and more than ever before on the security services.

A major question looking ahead will be whether discontented clerics will aggressively push their criticisms behind the scenes, and whether their followers who look to them for spiritual guidance will rally behind the reformist political opposition.

Opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, who claims to have won the June 12 elections, has made clear he will push ahead with his campaign against the government. The opposition says official election results that showed a landslide victory for incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad were fraudulent.

But how he can push his campaign remains unclear. The dramatic protests that brought hundreds of thousands to the streets for days have been shattered by the crackdown by police, Revolutionary Guards and Basij militiamen, in which at least 20 protesters and 7 Basiji militiamen were killed and more than 1,000 arrested. The options for political action likely will remain limited.

The show of divisions among clerics over the election has been stunning, though some have chosen to make clear their opposition by silence.