An increase in public disorder and in electoral support for the mullahs would logically follow.
So, what should the Bush administration do when, and if, the mullahs unveil their compromise formula?
Each time the mullahs are in trouble they become the essence of sweet reasonableness.
One way or another, Iran's mullahs control between one-third and one-half of their nation's economy.
The fact is neither Obama, the mullahs, nor Netanyahu wants a war over the nuclear issue.
Dehqan's statement is indicative of the mullahs' confidence in the direction the region is taking.
In Bangladesh, villages with active community groups or concerned mullahs proved greener than less active neighbouring villages.
No grand bargains or conflict-ending agreements are possible now with the mullahs or between Israelis and Palestinians.
In fact, she has never even publicly criticized the European and American attempts to appease the mullahs.
The result was that the mullahs and state corporatists no longer saw a need to play pretend.
His appeasement policy has given the mullahs eight precious months of unimpeded work at their nuclear installations.
If the mullahs got the bomb, I said, it was not they who would be deterred, but we.
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Mullahs feature in many televised debates, and some of them sound quite sensible.
He set a September deadline for his strategy of diplomatically courting the mullahs.
Meanwhile General Musharraf says he will remain army chief, even though he had promised the mullahs that he would not.
The mullahs are the Islamic clerics from an alliance of religious parties that's ruled this part of Pakistan for five years.
Some mullahs have been copying the sales pitch of the Pentecostalists, but with an emphasis on Muslim ascendancy rather than self-empowerment.
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The other is that Iran's mullahs may yet recall that the oil embargoes of the 1970s hurt producers more than consumers.
And internationally, the mullahs' success in 2002 has made it harder for General Musharraf to present himself as an enlightened moderator.
Their warrior mullahs included Mullah Powindah, an Afghan-backed Mehsud, who in 1894 led an attack on the British team demarcating the frontier.
Almost all of them, civilian and military, have pandered to the mullahs.
IMF, especially the United States, have other worries: will Pakistan return to democracy or will it succumb to rule by anti-western mullahs?
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Predictably, the mullahs responded that they would agree to no such preconditions.
And yet, Obama has refused to lift a finger against the mullahs.
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The Obama administration has no intention of preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear power or Syria from maintaining its alliance with the mullahs.
For the Obama administration there is but one way of looking at terrorists: Just as Fatah can be appeased, so the mullahs can be accommodated.
All the Obama administration wants to do is go back to its plan to appease the mullahs into reaching an agreement about their nuclear aspirations.
Then, in 2006, the administration began direct negotiations with the mullahs.
On Iran, I hope we can do the same thing, continue to work with the world to convince the Iranian mullahs to abandon their nuclear ambitions.
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