to succeed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The system had managed to rehabilitate itself and regain a measure of its credibility. The supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, proved his flexibility and thus managed to preserve his teetering republic.

But this view ignores the lasting effects of the fraudulent 2009 election. Once millions of Iranians poured into the streets claiming that Ahmadinejad had stolen the election, the right and center political factions closed ranks. The challenge to the system came as much from the protesters as it did from leftist reformers, many of whom chose to separate themselves from the government. The repression that followed was swift, and the reformers excised from the body politic. The prisons are still filled with those who have chosen to "live in truth" rather than join thelie.

In his sermons and proclamations, Khamenei has made it clear that any criticism of the 2009 election is an act of sedition. His right-wing allies have cheered his resolution, and centrist politicians, such as Rouhani, have accepted his verdict. As a price for being allowed to run for the presidency, Rouhani had to concede to Khamenei's manufactured conspiracies and condone the persecution of his erstwhile colleagues.

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The Rouhani administration has not improved Iran's human rights record because that was never part of the cruel bargain the president made with the supreme leader. Rouhani's portfolio was to be limited to the economy and nuclear diplomacy.

It is important to account for what Iran has lost. Since the 1990s, reformers worked toward an imaginative reconceptualization of the role of the citizenry in