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Iran on the Edge

After a hotly contested presidential election that resulted in street riots and a disputed claim to a renewed mandate by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran stands at a crossroads: between reformist and conservative leadership, between its revolutionary past and its post-revolutionary future.

Ahmadinejad's claimed landslide was met with angry disbelief by the country's reform movement; it also gave renewed urgency to the many unresolved issues that face Iran at home and abroad. How will Iran manage its approach to the Arab World? How will it deal with its rapid demographic growth? How will it manage its image through media outreach-to the Arab World, Turkey, the West, China, Russia and Africa? How will it manage a population, especially among the young, for whom the Islamic Revolution has turned stale? Iason Athanasiadis reports from Iran as these social, regional and evolutionary political developments loom large.

Iran's Elections: The View from the Highway

Two friends drive at top speed towards Tehran, the Iranian capital, on the night of the 2009 Presidential elections. Both in their early 20s, they represent the Islamic Republic's so-called children of the revolution: Iranians under 30, an age group that makes up 70 percent of the population.

Both are fervent supporters of reformist candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi, who inherited the reformist mantle from former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami and has squared up to incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the Islamic Republic's most crucial election.