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I've actually long been an admirer of the Islamic Republic's constitutional system, since learning about it in AP World Gov in high school.
Iran is a democracy, full stop, with certain elements that manage democratic change, similar for the most part to the US Judiciary. The Supreme Leader is chosen by the Assembly of Experts, who are directly elected. The Guardian Council, which vets candidates (including the Assembly of Experts) are appointed by the Supreme Leader.
The only real difference between our Constitutional Scholars at SCOTUS and their Islamic Jurists is the kind of law and tradition they study.
The actual government leaders, the parliament and the president, are elected by the people. The candidates are vetted by the Guardian Council.
It's a system designed to manage change and create stability.
That it has evolved (under pressure of repeated invasion, blockade, sanction, outside subversion against Iran and its neighbors) into a mix of theocracy and military state is unfortunate.
The ideas themselves aren't per-se bad. A similar system that produced a Supreme Leader that happened to be exactly to my tastes and values, and where the Supreme Leader held himself more aloof and less involved, would seem ideal for producing a consistent state and reduce values drift over time.
One can easily fantasize about an American Supreme Leader, the living embodiment of American values, who doesn't act day to day to carry out governance, but gets involved when the current government drifts out of line with core values. Or an American Guardian Council, which vets candidates to keep those out of line with American values from reaching the voters, demagogues and radicals. Eventually, if America shifts enough, both are subject to democratic change, but slowly.
Sure it's neat system in theory. But in practice it's totally broken down because the population has drifted far enough away from those core values that the managed democracy can no longer function because the people would choose totally different candidates organically than the ones they are allowed to vote for. Khomeini created the system to avoid values drift but it's utterly failed to do so because while they were able to avoid values drift in the government they weren't able to do so in the population.
I think it's important to be very cautious around this assumption. Would the Iranian people vote for a different government?
Probably, but it's not so just because a few Iranians say so, keep in mind how many Americans believe that an entirely different government would be elected if only we could get rid of the management of whatever mix of the deep state/corporate donors/AIPAC/woke media/civil rights law/voter fraud they think is keeping it from happening.
It's likely that whatever ultimately came out in a fully free democratic Iran wouldn't necessarily be what we would like, and certainly not in every case. If the Ayatollah's unconditionally surrendered, and we instituted a full liberal democracy with the US constitutional order ported over in full, and the Iranian people turn out to vote in a free and fair election, and the result is a government that abolishes the morality police but is hostile to Israel, what then?
Sure I think it would be closer to Iraq then Germany. However, post 2009 the constant suppression of mass protests with force and live ammunition shows that there is a huge amount of discontent that is not being expressed in the system. The revolutionary guards are also functioning as an unaccountable parasite given how much of the economy they've gradually taken over. I don't think Iranians would love Israel but their tired of they're meagre treasury being spent on foreign militia. Compare Iraq during Saddam's tenure to now. The democratic Iraq doesn't love Israel but it spends a lot less effort antagonizing them.
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That does not sound particularly democratic. It sounds vaguely reminiscent of "democracy" in the Soviet Union, where you could vote for any Communist-approved candidate you wanted and all actual power routed through unelected figures in the Party or executive.
What is your standard for democracy that this system as written fails? Technically, the constitution vests sovereignty in God, but all power follows from elections. The Supreme Leader is appointed by a group of elected experts (see eg our own Doge system). The guardian council vets candidates, but the guardian council is half appointed by the supreme leader and half by Parliament, so itself it has a democratic base.
There are obviously problems with how it has developed, but many of them can be analogized to undemocratic or dead hand problems with the American conditional order. They have one supreme leader who serves for life appointed by 14 elected experts, we have nine supreme court justices chosen by one president and 100 senators.
Iran is an illiberal democracy. They don't have free speech or freedom of expression. They have a significant dead hand problem of an entrenched set of interests which steer the country through approval of candidates. But then, so do we, through other means, and it's tough to look at our candidates sometimes and not wish for Guardian Council to protect me from them.
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Interesting. I don't really know much about their system, just that they have a "president" who doesn't do much and a "Supreme Leader" who sounds scary. But that all sounds pretty good. Just more evidence that Iran has some really good parts under the surface, its just ruined by an oppressive government.
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