ballots, and summoned Ahmadinejad's rivals: Mousavi himself, Karroubi, and Rezaee. All three men rejected the recount offer and only Rezaee went before the Council; Mousavi and Karroubi simply refused to appear, explicitly denying its authority as well as that of the Supreme Leader.

That is highly significant because with its elected president and parliament, Iran would be a normal democratic republic were it not for the office of the Supreme Leader and the Guardian Council - the latter are the Islamic Republic.

In theory, if Ahmadinejad, Khamenei and the extremists of the Guardian Council were all replaced by consensus figures, the Islamic Republic could continue as before. In practice that is impossible.

It is not for the distinctly uncharismatic and only marginally moderate Mir Hossein Mousavi that huge numbers of Iranians have been demonstrating at the risk of beatings and worse. His courage under pressure has certainly raised his popularity, but he is still no more than the accidental symbol of an emerging political revolution, chosen because he was the least extremist candidate that the Guardian Council would allow.

It is perfectly evident that after years of humiliating social repression and gross economic mismanagement, the more important part of Iran's population - the less uneducated, less poor, less passive, and most productive - have mostly turned their backs on the entire regime.

Even if personally religious or actually devout, they now reject the entire post-1979 structure of politicised Shi'a Islam with its powerful Ayatollahs, ubiquitous, officious Hojatollahs, strutting Pasdaran guards, low-life Basij militia, and exceedingly wealthy Islamic foundations with lots of well-paid priestly executives.

Many Iranians once inclined to respect clerics in general, now view them as generally corrupt, including the Ahmadinejad supporters who greatly applauded Khamenei's attacks on Ayatollah Rafsanjani.

Had Mousavi won the election, he would have introduced modest steps to liberalise the system - allowing women to go out with uncovered heads, for example. But such steps would only have triggered demands for more change, eventually bringing down the entire system of clerical rule.

Some clerics have long said that men of religion should give up political power

In the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev's initially very cautious reforms designed to perpetuate the Communist regime ended up destroying it in less than five years. In Iran, the system is much newer, and the process would have been faster.

Some important clerics, including Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, have long said that men of religion should strive to regain popular respect by voluntarily giving up political power, and that may provide a way out eventually.

Even if all protests are repressed, Supreme Leader Khamenei is now in the impossible position of having to support a president whose authority is not accepted by much of the governing structure itself - even the rather extremist Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani has declared that the vote counting was biased. So Ahmadinejad cannot really function as president even if he remains in office - for one thing, the Majlis parliament is unlikely to confirm his ministerial appointments.

If therefore Khamenei is not removed by the Assembly of Experts and Ahmadinejad is not removed by Khamenei, the government will continue to be paralysed. That will only accelerate the erosion of the machinery of priestly rule. Iran's great good fortune is that below it, the essential democratic institutions are up and running, and need only new elections for both the Majlis and the presidency.