Word: factionalism
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...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 has seen spats between the Supreme Leader, Ayatullah Ali Khamenei, and Ahmadinejad. The Revolutionary Guards leadership has a vested financial interest in isolating the Islamic republic from the West - and focusing its sights eastward toward places like China. Indeed, some observers believe the IRGC's economic functions may eventually turn...
...former U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Martinez was ushered into the Senate in 2004 by the conservative Republican machine of George W. Bush's political guru, Karl Rove. (His primary campaign smeared his opponent as pro-gay just because he supported hate-crimes legislation.) But that GOP faction eventually exasperated Martinez. It's something Crist needs to think about as he mulls the best way to win the Senate's seat next year - and the best choice to fill it next month...
...putting two foreign embassy staffers and a French teacher on trial alongside dozens of political dissidents. The stepped-up campaign to characterize the widespread unrest since the June 12 presidential election as a foreign-led attempted "soft overthrow" appears to be an effort by the ruling faction to rally the increasingly splintered conservative base against a popular - and old - enemy: the West...
Even if the hard-liners can hold their faction together, they must deal with an increasingly unruly Ahmadinejad, who briefly defied the Supreme Leader in trying to appoint an in-law as his Vice President. Now, within two weeks, he must appoint a new Cabinet that a divided parliament must approve. But perhaps most pressing is the impending showdown with the West. U.S. President Barack Obama has given the Iranian government a September deadline to come to the negotiating table on the nuclear issue...
...Riina, who'd led the bloody takeover of the Mafia by the Corleone faction in the early 1980s, had never made more than a passing (and indecipherable) allusion about the crime to the authorities since his arrest in Palermo a year after the Borsellino killing. His longtime partner in crime and successor as capo dei capi, Bernardo Provenzano, has also stayed mum since his capture near Corleone in 2006. Known as Cosa Nostra, the Sicilian Mob has long maintained power on the island (and beyond) with the help of omertà, a vow of silence and absolute refusal to cooperate...