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Meanwhile, the IRGC has been cleaning house. According to an opposition adviser who maintains close ties to the Guards leadership, at least five commanders sympathetic to the reformists were put under house arrest in the aftermath of the election. These purges within Iran's security apparatus consolidated power in the hands of the top Guards commanders, who form a united hard-liner bloc that is opposed to reconciliation with the opposition or the West. The IRGC, then, is the most effective power bloc in the country, certainly more cohesive in its top leadership than the conservative political faction, which...
...Pakistan set off widespread street demonstrations and a show trial that ultimately led to the execution of the Prime Minister. In the end, that government was toppled by a military coup led by a general who would rule for a decade with the help of a shadowy security apparatus. Could something similar happen in Iran...
...overseas audience, even as it blames foreign powers for trying to topple the government; rather, Saturday's trial was part of an aggressive strategy to unite its power base, the coalition of conservative clerics in Qum and the Tehran-based commanders of the country's sprawling security apparatus. The masterminds behind the trial - believed to be either Supreme Leader Ayatullah Ali Khamenei or the commander of the Revolutionary Guards, Mohammad Ali Jafari, or both - probably realize the proceedings will convince few supporters of the opposition or the average Tehrani. But the confessions may galvanize the still substantial bloc of conservative...
...rational. At the upper end of the scale, it's crazily self-defeating for us to set arbitrary and entirely politicized limits on the visas we grant to skilled foreign workers, such as software engineers and nurses. Wouldn't it make more sense to establish a politically independent federal apparatus, like the Federal Reserve System, that would adjust immigration quotas according to the actual and projected ebbs and flows of our economy? The waves of exotic foreigners who poured in during the 1800s and early 1900s were unsettling to Americans at the time - culturally, economically, and politically. But our forebears...
...regime's security apparatus spared no measure to ensure that the opposition's plans for a million-strong march would not materialize: cell-phone networks warned in advance of "technical difficulties" on inauguration day; subway stations neared Baharestan Square were closed; the élite Revolutionary Guards told hospitals near the parliament to expect wounded protesters in large numbers; and some 5,000 Basij and Guards waited for the crowds, according to state television. (See pictures of the Basij in action: "Terror in Plain Clothes...