How secure is the theocratic regime in Iran?

Indeed, President Hafez Al Assad, Bashar s father, massacred up to 38,000 mainly Sunni fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood insurgents in Hama in 1982. Today, parts of the ruling Ba ath elite worry about Syria s deepening alliance with theocratic Iran and Islamist Hezbollah.

PRINCETON To Western eyes, Middle East politics have again been stood on their head. Iran s theocratic mullahs allowed the election of Hassan Rowhani, a man who announced in his first speech as President elect that his victory is the victory of wisdom, moderation, and awareness over fanaticism and bad behavior.

But to get to that stage, where democracy builds the fabric of society and the political choices within that fabric, but are certainly not theocratic and military dictatorship i.e. you're voting in a democracy, in an existing democracy, and that democracy is not merely one of the choices at the ballot box.

Islamists continue to dominate a restored parliament and the new constitution establishes a theocratic state. Most of Egypt s Islamists, particularly those who returned from exile in Saudi Arabia, adhere to the Wahhabi sect, with its severe restrictions on women, implying that women s status would be much worse than it was before the revolution.

Last April, Gül s candidacy brought a threat of a coup from the military, precipitating the recent elections. Thus, the electorate also made it clear that it no longer wanted the military involved in domestic politics, rejecting the generals warnings that the AKP would lead the country into the darkness of theocratic rule.

Iran s theocratic regime, immersed in a momentous struggle for survival against what it regards as an unholy alliance of Israel, the American Great Satan, and a surrounding Arab world that abhors its hegemonic ambitions, will not surrender its nuclear ambitions easily. Indeed, nuclear weapons appear to be the regime s only real route to self preservation.

Given that Egypt and Turkey are two of the three most populous countries of Islam s historic core (the third is theocratic Iran), one might infer that their ongoing difficulties have destroyed any prospect of reconciling political Islam with pluralist democracy. But the two countries situations include fundamental differences, as do political Islam s prospects for renewal.

Disintegration in the Arab Middle East reflects the region s failure to find a path between the bankrupt, secular nationalism that has dominated its state system since independence and a radical brand of Islam at war with modernity. The fundamental problem consists in an existential struggle between utterly dysfunctional states and an obscenely savage brand of theocratic fanaticism.

In promoting democracy, liberals reject the argument used by today s rulers that the first free election would be the last, because Islamists would win and establish theocratic regimes. Reformers insist that the vast majority of people support moderate solutions, or at least that radical Islamist groups would have to become pragmatic in order to compete for power and govern.

To her equally frantic detractors on the left and increasingly in the center she is a frightening harbinger of a theocratic America, a mafia style executrix of state business who lies about the connection of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to Iraq, mocks Barack Obama for his opposition to torturing prisoners, and defies subpoenas. Think of her as George W. Bush II, but in designer pumps.

The second scenario is an Islamist regime Morsi negotiates with SCAF a transition to civilian rule Islamists continue to dominate a restored parliament and the new constitution establishes a theocratic state. Most of Egypt s Islamists, particularly those who returned from exile in Saudi Arabia, adhere to the Wahhabi sect, with its severe restrictions on women, implying that women s status would be much worse than it was before the revolution.