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Observers with a working knowledge of Iranian politics have largely been able to shrug off President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's bluster and bullying, knowing the diminutive President must still answer to a far more powerful figure: Supreme Leader Ayatullah Ali Khamenei. Since 1989, the shadowy cleric - a former president himself - has sat at the apex of Iran's complex hierarchy as the final word in all political and religious matters. The massive protests roiling Tehran in the aftermath of the June 12 elections have underlined both the vast sweep of Khamenei's powers and, perhaps, its limitations. After hailing Ahmadinejad...
...with the same heart." The banner was spotted again during the game, along with signs reading "Where Is My Vote?" (a slogan widely displayed on June 16 during street demonstrations in Tehran) and Iranian national flags with "Free Iran" written across them. (See pictures of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad...
...unknown whether the game was watched by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But he is known to be a passionate soccer fan who closely follows the fortunes of Iran's national team. Indeed, at a press conference after he was declared the winner of last week's election, Ahmadinejad dismissed the protests in Iran's streets by comparing the demonstrators to soccer fans upset over a loss. "Some believed they would win, and then they got angry," he said. "It is like the passions after a football match...
...Iran wrong with a startling degree of consistency," says Suzanne Maloney, senior fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy. "We definitely got it wrong this time. I say that for everyone in government and for everyone out of government." (See what Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's win means for other world leaders...
According to Maloney, the election controversy provided considerable new insight into the cleric believed to hold absolute power, Ayatullah Ali Khamenei. Everyone expected voting irregularities, she said, but not "this degree of blatant, in-your-face fraud." That Khamenei almost instantly certified the victory of his candidate, incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, dashed a central assumption about his regime: that its survival and social stability are intertwined with the legitimacy of Iran's democratic institutions. "He was willing to jettison the democratic institutions and effectively cede whatever remaining legitimacy there was in a popular vote in favor of maintaining total control...