Evidence would suggest:

1) That the political and economic establishment in Iran is tightly controlled by a clergy-dominated elite whose ranks have remained somewhat constant, although recycled since the 1979 Revolution;

2) This establishment is composed of both clerics and non-clerics;

3) This establishment jealously guards its privileges with all its powers, including the use of violence both inside and outside Iran;

4) This establishment is constantly self-perpetuating;

5) While not necessarily a monolith, the Islamic establishment in Iran acts collectively in defense of what it considers its prerogatives (oil revenue, the foundations, the stock market, the banking and the equity markets, and anything else that could be considered a system of allocating values, to paraphrase Harold Lasswell's definition of politics);

6) Joining the ranks of this Islamic elite is near impossible for a secular-minded individual or a non-Moslem;

7) In the case of an attack on its pillars of power, the establishment closes ranks despite their "outsider" and "insider" (khodi va ghayr khodi) differences and puts up a spirited defense (I refer to the recent remarks of President Khatami who forgot all about his so-called democratic credentials and attacked Mr. Hashemi Aghajari -a university professor and a former revolutionary and war veteran-over the latter's critical views on the role of religion and the clergy in the Iranian body politic);

8) The establishment has in place a division of labor with respect to the allocation of Iran's resources and that division of labor is based on provincial and non-provincial factors:

a. National resources are under the purview of a clerical family clan operating nationally, for example the Rafsanjani clan;

b. Provincial resources are under the purview of a clerical family clan operating in provinces, for example the clan of Ayatollah Vaez Tabasi in Mashad;

c. Military resources are under the purview of the Supreme Leader (Ayatollah Khamenei and a few revolutionary guards commanders);

d. Petroleum and banking resources are under the purview of a non-cleric and technocratic clan joined at the hip to the troika of leadership in Iran: Messrs. Khamenei, Khatami and Rafsanjani.

Question: Why is this establishment of the Islamic clergy and their non-clerical allies so afraid of democracy?

Because democracy offers:

A serious and time-tested body of thought far more capable of coping and dealing with the needs of an emerging modern nation-state;

An inherent flexibility in dealing with reality both inside and outside of Iran, whereas the Islamic system, due to its essentially totalitarian mode of thought, first becomes bogged down in finding the right theory (hadith, sunnat, etc.) in its reservoir of sources dealing with reality; second it needs to constantly check and cross check its traditions and biblical resources generated long time ago to answer questions of a long-gone era and not that of the 21st Century;

3) Inclusiveness based on the utilitarian axiom that whatever works and can be reasonably tested should or at least be looked at, if not tried, whereas in Islam whatever works is more often than not, against the centuries-old dogma (taboo on interest, women's rights of inheritance, legal age of 9 for marriage for women, etc.)

4) Inclusiveness based on the notion that the right answer may be found not with one individual and a Muslim one at that, but with many individuals who may just happen to be Bahaiis, Muslims, Jews, Zoroastrians, socialists and monarchists;

5) Efficient handling of global economic and political issues (the Palestinian case, for example, can be easily analysed within a framework of Iranian national interests: is supporting HAMAS in furthering Iran's national interests with respect to the Caspian Sea?) in practical terms as opposed to ideological (I am a Muslim and I should help the Palestinians. Although no one asks what national interest of Iran's is served by meddling in a century-old feud);

6) Accountability to the average citizen and his/her freely chosen representatives and not to God nor to his representatives;

7) Mechanism of self-regulation and self-correction, which is, in practice, anathema to an Islamic or any other totalitarian system;

8) Iran the opportunity to take the plunge into the world capitalist system and forcing this ancient land, long accustomed to closed and inefficient markets, to sink or swim;

9) Iranians with a sense of ownerships and entrepreneurship with respect to their own affairs as well as those of their country;

10) Release of the pent-up frustrations of millions of Iranians specially women and the youth, who are and have been disenfranchised in the name of God and Islam.

I would wager that should these 10 items ever be introduced to Iran, the 8 items listed in the beginning of this piece would become null and void.

Wouldn't they?

In the words of Winston Churchill who once said, "Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried."

*Mr. Guilani is an Iranian banker based in the USA. He contributed this article to Iran Press Service