• STEVE INSKEEP: You know, the journalist Fareed Zakaria not long ago wrote a column in which he said: The real story is that Iran is weak and getting weaker. Sanctions have pushed its economy into a nose-dive. The political system is fractured and fragmenting. Is that a fair statement?
• HOOMAN MAJD: I don't think it's so weak that it's going to collapse anytime soon. First of all, the ayatollahs are the ultimate survivors, and they're very pragmatic. They're not crazy. They've managed to survive under various systems of government for the last 200 or 300 years. And I think that now that they have power, I don't think they're going to do anything that would make them potentially lose their legitimacy.
• HOOMAN MAJD: That said, yes. I mean, there are some serious internal fissures in the Iranian system. And those are going to be played out over the next, I would say, year and a half between the parliamentary elections which are coming up in a month and a half, two months, and then following that in the presidential election of 2013.
• STEVE INSKEEP: Hooman Majd is a journalist and a regular guest on this program. He's just returned from nine months of reporting inside Iran.
• (Source: NPR, Sanctions On Iran Effect Ordinary Iranians Psyche)

January 07, 2012, 12:34pm  2 notes