IRAN: The end of the Mullah state?

On he postings about the Shah of Iran and the mullahs, Stephen Schwarts says: "Comparisons of this kind are odious. The Pahlavis were upstarts, and any attempt to legitimize a return to their rule will, in my view, be rejected by the Iranian majority. The state created by Khomeini, based on the heretical concept of wilaya-ul-faqih or rule by the clerics, has not existed for some time in Iran. It is time to stop demonizing "mullahs." The country is not a fundamentalist dictatorship. It is a clerical state clearly on the road of transition to popular sovereignty. Constant references to "the mullahs" in Iran make me wonder what the reaction would be if, simultaneously, we heard constant references to "the rabbis" in Israel".

Ronald Hilton - 6/24/03