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At this point, it is only the short-term future of Iran's clerical regime that remains in doubt. The current protests could be repressed, but the unelected institutions of priestly rule have been fatally undermined. In the meantime, the government may be largely paralyzed anyway. Each of these things has its own dynamic and timetable, but this is not a regime that can last many more years.

When it comes to repression, the Islamic Republic's spectrum of security instruments that can be used synergistically include:

• The regular national police for routine crowd control without much use of force;
• Riot police units with batons that can beat up some demonstrators to discourage others;
• The much more brutal, underclass Basij militiamen, who enjoy hitting, even shooting, more affluent Iranians;
• The not incompetent technical arm of the regime that blocks cellular service to impede demonstrations, disrupts Internet services and intercepts opposition communications.

If violence were to escalate greatly, Pasdaran revolutionary guard troops, with their wheeled armoured vehicles, might also be called in, although at some risk to the regime: One unhappy losing candidate, Mohsen Rezai, was once their long-term commander. The alternative of calling in the regular army with its tanks would be much more risky, given that the loyalty of the generals is unknown. For the time being, the regime doesn't need either to control the demonstrators.

What has undermined the very structure of the Islamic Republic is the fracturing of its ruling elite. It was the unity established by its founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, that allowed the regime to dominate the population for almost 30 years, and it has now been lost. The very people who did much to create the institutions of priestly rule are now destroying their authority.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's leading rival for the presidency, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, was prime minister from 1981 to 1989, when the Islamic Republic acquired its administrative structure, including its unelected head, the “Supreme Leader” who commands all and must be obeyed in all things. But Mr. Mousavi now flatly rejects the orders of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to accept Mr. Ahmadinejad's re-election. In this, Mr. Mousavi is joined by another losing candidate, former speaker of the Majlis (elected parliament) and pillar of the establishment Mehdi Karroubi, a great many supporters of both and a yet-more-senior founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

President from 1989 to 1997, among other things, Mr. Rafsanjani is the chairman of the Assembly of Experts, whose 86 members choose the Supreme Leader and can ostensibly remove him. During the campaign, Mr. Ahmadinejad accused Mr. Rafsanjani and his children of corruption in the harshest terms, on live television. If his re-election is to be “definitive” and even “divine,” as the Supreme Leader has declared, Mr. Rafsanjani would have to resign from all his offices and his children would have to leave Iran. Instead, he is reportedly trying to recruit a majority of the Assembly of Experts to remove Ayatollah Khamenei, or at least force him to order new elections.

The other key undemocratic institution that makes the Islamic Republic what it is, and that Mr. Mousavi and Mr. Rafsanjani, among others, helped to create, is the 12-member Council of Guardians. It can veto any laws passed by the Majlis, and any candidate who presents himself for election (only Islamists qualify). In recent years, it has persistently sided with the extremists and Mr. Ahmadinejad, using its veto powers very aggressively.

Ayatollah Khamenei logically chose the council to deal with the election dispute. The council announced that it might recount 10 per cent of the ballots, and summoned Mr. Ahmadinejad's rivals: Mr. Mousavi, Mr. Karroubi and Mr. Rezai, the longest-serving (1981-1997) commander of the Pasdaran revolutionary guards, another fundamental institution of the Islamic Republic with its own ministry, industries and overseas operations.

Mr. Mousavi, Mr. Karroubi and Mr. Rezai all rejected the recount offer. Only Mr. Rezai went before the council, Mr. Mousavi and Mr. Karroubi simply refused to appear, explicitly denying its authority as well as that of the Supreme Leader.

WHAT SETS IRAN APART

That is highly significant, because with its elected president and parliament, Iran would be a normal democratic republic, were it not for the office of the supreme leader and the council - the latter are the Islamic Republic.

In theory, if Mr. Ahmadinejad, Ayatollah Khamenei and the extremists of the Council of Guardians were all replaced by consensus figures, the Islamic Republic could continue as before. In practice, that is impossible. It is not for the distinctly uncharismatic and only marginally moderate Mr. Mousavi that huge numbers of Iranians have been demonstrating at the risk of beatings and worse. His courage under pressure has certainly raised his popularity, but he is still no more than the accidental symbol of an emerging political revolution, chosen because he was the least extremist candidate that the Council of Guardians would allow.

It is perfectly evident that after years of humiliating social repression and gross economic mismanagement, the more important part of Iran's population - the less uneducated, less poor, less passive and most productive, have mostly turned their backs on the entire regime. Even if personally religious or actually devout, they now reject the entire post-1979 structure of politicized Shia Islam with its powerful ayatollahs, its ubiquitous, officious hojatollahs, its strutting Pasdaran guards, its low-life Basij militia and its exceedingly wealthy Islamic foundations with lots of well-paid priestly executives.

Many Iranians, once inclined to respect clerics in general, now view them as generally corrupt, including the Ahmadinejad supporters who greatly applauded his attacks on Mr. Rafsanjani.

Had Mr. Mousavi won the election, modest steps to liberalize the system - he would have allowed women to go out with uncovered heads, for example - would only have triggered demands for more change, eventually bringing down the entire system of clerical rule. In the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev's initially very cautious reforms designed to perpetuate the Communist regime ended up destroying it in less than five years. In Iran, the system is much newer, and the process would have been faster.

A WAY OUT?

Some important clerics, including Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, have long said that men of religion should strive to regain popular respect by voluntarily giving up political power, and that may finally provide a way out.

Even if all protests are repressed, Ayatollah Khamenei is now in the impossible position of having to support a President whose authority is not accepted by much of the governing structure itself - even the rather extremist Majlis speaker Ali Larijani has declared that the vote-counting was biased.

Therefore, Mr. Ahmadinejad cannot really function as President even if he remains in office - the Majlis is unlike to confirm his ministerial appointments. If, therefore, Ayatollah Khamenei is not removed by the Assembly of Experts, and Mr. Ahmadinejad is not removed by Ayatollah Khamenei, the government will continue to be paralyzed. That will only accelerate the erosion of the machinery of clerical rule.

Iran's great good fortune is that below that rule, the essential democratic institutions are up and running, and need only new elections for both the Majlis and the presidency.

Edward Luttwak is senior associate at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.