While the Iranian establishment has a strong vested interest in resolving the conflict as quickly as possible, there are no signs yet that key players are willing to make the compromises necessary for conflict resolution. Without resolution, the crisis will continue to produce significant street-level disturbances that will slowly chip away at the legitimacy of the Islamic Republic.

Demise of reformists

The counter-demonstrations on November 4 (which is the annual official commemoration of the seizure of the US Embassy in Tehran in November 1979) was similar (albeit larger) to the counter-demonstration on Quds (Jerusalem) day in September. On the surface, these counter-demonstrations show the ingenuity of a new grassroots protest movement that exploits "official" days (of which there are many in Iran) to come out on the streets to protest against the government of President Mahmud Ahmadinejad and the wider establishment.

But behind the scenes, far deeper and significant forces are at play. The street demonstrations since June 2009 are the clearest indication of the demise of Iranian reformists, who captured the public limelight in dramatic fashion in May 1997 with the presidential electoral victory of Mohammad Khatami. Over the next eight years, the reformists fought a protracted political battle with entrenched traditional and ideological conservative forces. This culminated in their definitive political defeat in the June 2005 presidential elections which brought Ahmadinejad to power.

The reformists spent the next four years trying to make a comeback and seemed to have made a breakthrough with the candidacy of Mir Hossein Mousavi, but their plans fell apart with Mousavi′s defeat. But even if Mousavi had prevailed, this would not have necessarily guaranteed reformist success. As the past five months have shown, there is a big gulf between the views and aspirations of the reformists and the street protesters.

Ultimately, the causes behind the reformists′ demise aren′t the actions of the Ahmadinejad government or an allegedly rigged election, but the deceptive nature of the reformist political program. Since the early 1990s, the reformists have tried to be all things to all people. They profess loyalty to the Islamic Republic but prescribe a set of political and socio-cultural policies that if taken to their logical conclusion would abolish the Islamic regime.

They present themselves as an "opposition" force, but at the same time they have deep links to the most sensitive institutions in Iran. The best example is Saeed Hajjarian - a former intelligence official widely regarded as the chief strategist of the reformists - who throughout his reformist career doubled up as a "consultant" to the Ministry of Intelligence, a lucrative engagement which is thought to have been his main source of income in the 1990s and early 2000s.

At the ideological and philosophical level, the reformists have been even more confused. Vague notions of "Islamic democracy" and "religious state not a state religion" may serve as attractive and deceptive political slogans for a while, but in the long term they fail to make a marked and sincere intellectual impact.

The crisis sparked by an allegedly rigged election has more than ever exposed the reformists as confused ideologues who for material, political and ideological reasons are unable to definitively break with the ruling establishment. While objectionable at so many levels, the main purpose of the show trials currently underway in Tehran is to expose the hypocrisy and deceit at the heart of the reform movement.

But it is the street protesters who have hammered the last proverbial nail into the coffin of the reform movement. The deeply subversive slogans of the protesters - such as "freedom, Independence, Iranian Republic", which perverts the standard revolutionary slogan of "Freedom, Independence, Islamic Republic" - highlight a considerable gap between the aspirations of an embryonic grassroots movement and the reformists.

The immediate effect of the reformists′ political demise is the projection of disaffection and opposition feelings onto the streets. But a more profound effect is the collapse of factional politics in the Islamic Republic. Another contributing factor to the collapse of factional politics has been the relentless rise of the radical right, as exemplified by Ahmadinejad and his inner circle. The radical right stormed onto the political stage with the 2005 presidential election victory of Ahmadinejad, and has since gradually consolidated its power, helped by numerous elements in the establishment who are nervous about rising corruption and a perceived erosion of revolutionary values.

The rise of the radical right has been achieved at the expense of more traditional conservatives. With a few exceptions, traditional conservative leaders have acceded to the dominance of the radical right, seeing it as a temporary and necessary corrective to the "deviations" of the reformist years of 1997-2005.

Another factor that has contributed to a radical transformation in Iranian politics is the political eclipse of Hashemi Rafsanjani and his supporters. Long in decline, Rafsanjani saw the post-election disturbances in June as an opportunity to make yet another comeback. But this time everything was against him, including his age (he is 75). His speech at Friday Prayers at Tehran University on July 17 was widely seen by Islamic Republic loyalists as treacherous and the most extreme and dangerous example of Rafsanjani′s opportunism.

Moreover, while Rafsanjani′s mixed message was warmly received by some of the protesters, it failed to have the desired effect because of his widespread unpopularity. Most important of all, Rafsanjani′s failure to heed the wishes and advice of the leader of the Islamic revolution, Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei (who a month earlier had advised all key political leaders to desist from fanning the crisis) was widely seen as implying a tone of finality insofar as Rafsanjani′s relationship with Khamenei is concerned. The breakdown of this 50-year relationship (which stretches back to the decades before the victory of the 1979 revolution) will likely be seen by posterity as a key moment in the history of the Islamic revolution.

A counter-revolution: Myth or semi-myth?

While the regime was successful in suppressing the wide-scale protests and riots that erupted after the controversial June elections, it hasn′t managed to crush them altogether. Indeed, protests and riots on a far smaller scale have continued. This has led to the emergence of a street-based movement that has now come to be known as the "Green" movement, following the adoption of this color by defeated presidential candidate and former prime minister, Mousavi.

The so-called Green movement is impossibly diverse and amorphous and takes the adage "politics makes strange bedfellows" to new extremes. It encompasses some of the old reformists, socially alienated youngsters, a new generation of political activists and dissidents and exiled opposition groups.

At present, this embryonic movement cannot sustain even the broadest of political coalitions. It lacks leadership and a coherent strategy. It is driven entirely by street protesters, many of whom are from a new generation of political activists that have little or no links to the reformists. While the Green movement chants slogans in favor of defeated presidential candidates Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, this is widely regarded as a tactical move, since the new generation of political dissidents tends to look beyond figures like Mousavi and Karroubi for solutions.

Although some leading reformists, in particular the Islamic Iran Participation Front (the main organized reformist body), have enthusiastically latched onto the Green movement, leading and rank-and-file reformists are not thought to exercise significant influence over the street protesters. For one thing, many leading reformists and their most effective political organizers and activists are currently languishing in prison as a result of their alleged role in encouraging unrest following the controversial presidential election in June.

From a strategic point of view, the most important development in opposition circles has been the gradual sidelining of Mousavi, in whose name hundreds of thousands of citizens protested in the wake of the presidential poll. Before the polling, many influential leaders and activists from across the political spectrum had high hopes for Mousavi as a "cross-factional" figure who could create new political spaces and opportunities for the Islamic Republic on account of his reputation for incorruptibility and ability to appeal to a broad spectrum of the population.

As it turned out, Mousavi lacked political finesse and judgement. By imagining that the protesters on the streets were animated by the same themes and aspirations as the reformists, Mousavi bought into the classic reformist myth, namely that the disaffected urban middle class shies away from sudden and transformative change.

In the past five months, Mousavi, alongside other leaders of the "reformed" Islamic left, have learnt that the main reason the reformist movement has enjoyed near-total domination of opposition spaces since the 1990s is because the establishment has allowed it to perform this role. Whenever new political spaces and opportunities arise, alternatives to the reformist discourse also emerge.

Despite their success in defying the authorities, the street protesters and agitators in the Green movement would do well to dwell on their limitations. Their movement is far from reaching revolutionary capability. Moreover, had the Iranian authorities firmly decided to crush the movement altogether, they could have probably done it by now. At present, all indications suggest that the authorities - in particular the Ministry of Intelligence - are advising key figures in the regime to desist from a harsh crackdown, lest that produce unintended consequences further down the road.

Furthermore, the new generation of political activists and dissidents would do well to study the differences between the shah′s regime and the Islamic Republic. The two systems have little in common and the situation today is nowhere near comparable to that which prevailed in 1978-1979.

One of the main reasons the shah′s regime relented in the end was because it was abandoned by the army in January 1979. In sharp contrast, the Islamic regime is unlikely to suffer this fate. In the unlikely event that the current protests morph into something much bigger and produce daily political disturbances, then the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) is expected to take decisive action.

The IRGC′s Seyed-ol-Shohada Division led by commander Ali Fazli, which is strategically perched on the northern gateway of Tehran, can move swiftly into the metropolis and occupy all important institutions and buildings, and cut off the Iranian capital from the outside world, all within hours.

While this scenario is far-fetched, it is nonetheless a warning to all political forces in Iran, including the government of Ahmadinejad, that the IRGC will not hesitate to take decisive action and suspend the entire political process if it feels that the Islamic revolution is faced with a massive, immediate and potentially mortal threat.

Far-fetched scenarios aside, all responsible political forces in the country recognize the need for a solution. Simply "muddling along" until 2013 (when new presidential elections take place) is not an option, not least because a weakened government with questionable legitimacy and an embattled establishment will be unable to successfully negotiate the strategic and foreign policy obstacles of the coming months and years.

One solution that was touted in the early weeks of the crisis was a "partnership of the extremes", where the radical right and the authentic (as opposed to reformed) Islamic left would reach an accommodation. While this approach has had some success at the grassroots level, it has yet to be adopted by the higher reaches of the regime.

Resistance by the more stubborn and aggressive elements of the radical right is thought to be the main obstacle. But in the short term, this solution is the most viable since it will at least paper over the cracks in establishment and revolutionary circles and restore the balance of confidence to the Islamic regime and its supporters. It is at that point that the street protests will fizzle out altogether.

Mahan Abedin is a senior researcher in terrorism studies and a consultant to independent media in Iran. He is currently based in northern Iraq, where he is helping to develop local media capacity.