Politics of Iran

The government of Iran, which adheres to the constitution drafted after the 1979 revolution, has several branches. At the top is the Supreme Leader, who controls the armed forces and has veto power over the most important state decisions.

He (a woman is ineligible for this position) appoints judges, military commanders, and the heads of radio and television. He is himself elected and supervised by an Assembly of Experts, who are elected by the people, from a list of candidates chosen by the government.

The first Supreme Leader was the Ayatollah Khomeini, and the current Supreme Leader is the Ayatollah Khamenei.

Below the Supreme Leader is the Council of Guardians, who make many day-to-day decisions on behalf of the country. They interpret Iran's constitution, similar to the Supreme Court of the U.S. The nation's legislative body is the Majlis. It is dominated by conservatives, though reformists and independents also hold parliamentary seats.

Iran's government also has an executive branch. Its presidents, like those in the U.S., serve four-year terms and can only be re-elected once. The country's current president is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Before being elected president in 2005, Ahmadinejad was mayor of Tehran. He was re-elected in 2009, amid controversy and accusations of election fraud. He is unpopular in the West, due to his virulent criticism of Israel and his determination to pursue Iran's nuclear energy program, which many observers believe is a front for a nuclear weapons program.

In addition to an army, air force and navy, Iran has had a military branch known as the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution ever since the revolution in 1979. This elite branch is now primarily composed of veterans of the Iran-Iraq War and their descendants.

It polices the other military branches, to prevent future uprisings, and carries out both border security and internal law enforcement. It also oversees the Basij, a volunteer militia which suppresses political dissidence within the country, such as the protests over Ahmadinejad's re-election in 2009.

These protests, known as the Green Revolution even though they did not actually result in a revolution, were spurred by discontent among followers of opposition candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi. Mousavi, a moderate reformer, caught the political wave and became the de facto leader for liberalizers within Iran who wanted more personal freedoms and renewed ties with the West.

Though the protests raised some hope from international observers that the Iranian regime would collapse, they were suppressed by the Basij and the ayatollahs, and the movement seems, for now, to be more or less dormant.