Because on the one hand, of course, a theocratic form of government is not consistent with the Constitution of the United States or the freedoms that it enshrines, or the government that it prescribes.

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That doesn't mean it is a theocratic state.

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Because Bahrain hosts a U.S. naval presence, and because it has been able to cultivate an international image as an ally against radicalism even as it remains a theocratic state, there is an assumption that the American influence in Bahrain could be decisive.

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For now, he seems also to have the backing of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a cleric anointed by the late Ayatollah Khomeini, the founding father of a revolutionary theocratic Iran.

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They represent a large and relatively coherent constituency of 5m people, something that cannot be said of most of the other members, who are either former exiles, political novices, or represent a Shia majority that is badly split over whether to follow a secular or theocratic agenda.

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But the philosophical base on which Iran's theocratic edifice is built is Khomeini's velayat-e faqih, the rule of the Islamic jurist, a concept the ayatollah developed in exile in Iraq in the 1970s.

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