'Self-inflicted' Iranian crisis can only be solved by a re-election: Expert

Washington, June 19 (ANI): Iran experts are unsure what compromise can be acceptable to both sides, and any climb down by the Supreme Leader seems hard to digest in Iran's theocratic system.

Mir Hossein Mousavi and other key moderates are riding a wave of popular anger over how the presidential election was handled.

Iran's top clerical leadership is taking steps to defuse six days of crisis and violence, as Iranians challenging the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took to the streets again on Thursday, The Christian Science Monitor reports.

"At the moment I think the (Islamic system} will survive this, as long as they take decisive measures to address these grievances," says Ali Ansari, director of the Institute for Iranian Studies at St. Andrews University in Scotland.

"The problem grows the longer they leave it. This is a serious crisis for them and it's completely self-inflicted. I think they'll have to go for a re-run of the election," says Ansari, author of "Confronting Iran".

Iran's supreme religious leader Ayatollah Sayed Ali Khamenei is due to lead Friday prayers in Tehran at which conservative factions have vowed a large turnout and he is expected to deliver a message of unity.

The powerful Guardian Council is to meet on Saturday with all three defeated candidates. The council is examining 646 opposition complaints, and has said it will consider a partial recount.

But the 12 clerics on the Council have all but ruled out a full recount, or a re-run of the election, as demanded by defeated top contender Mir Hossein Mousavi and the hundreds of thousands of Iranians who have rallied for him on the streets this week.

Analysts say there is no easy way out of the crisis, since Ayatollah Khamenei quickly approved Ahmadinejad's victory as a "divine assessment." But the wrath of Iranians behind Mousavi who feel their vote was stolen has only grown in the meantime.

"This is the Islamic Republic's 'Twilight Zone.' People have not been here before," says Anoush Ehteshami, professor of international relations at the University of Durham.

The state is following its instinct to clamp down, control information, behead the movement and get their people on the street," he says. (ANI)