| Some useful nuggets here, but watch out for NYT bias. |
With Iran's political establishment at war with itself, a central question lurking behind the post-election tumult is which side the country's highly influential clerics will back. So far the mullahs -- a potentially critical swing vote -- have remained largely silent, with the notable exception of a few prominent grand ayatollahs, including one who attacked the vote count as "a gross injustice" on Wednesday.
The clerics and their thousands of pupils, concentrated in the holy city of Qum, are a generally conservative lot,
| No, they're not 'conservative'. They're Khomeinist, which makes them radical islamicists and totalitarian. That's not conservative, though the NYT reporter would like to think that. |
... who have been known to jump into the political fray en masse only when a clear winner starts to emerge. And few religious leaders have yet to join the tens of thousands of Iranians expressing their fury by marching through the streets of Tehran and other cities.
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