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265 Pedro Luis Rubio Terés The iranian elites as perceived from their society and… Admittedly exaggerated, this allegation is not without grounds. Indeed, Khomeini already targeted the «Export of the Revolution» as one of the principal external guidelines, turning a blind eye to any political alignment with either the East or the West. Instead, he endorsed the defense of those Muslims repressed in Western countries condemning any distinction between Sunnis and Shia, in contrast to the succeeding leaders64. Figure 7: the Imam Hassan Askari Mosque in the holy city of Qom THE INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL POWER STRUGGLE OF THE IRANIAN ELITES Power in Iran can be divided in three levels: the political system (polity) based on the velayat-e faqih (as stated in the Constitution of 1979), the formal institutions holding the legislative, judiciary and executive power (inherited from the constitutional revolutionary period, 1905-1911) and the «popular power» traditionally in the hands of the bazaaries. This sector of the population constitutes the utmost representation of the intersection between the religious and the social powers. In particular, the clerics promote the social 64  IMAM REZA NETWORK. «Islamic Unity in the views of Imam Khomeini», 1998. Available at: https://www.imamreza.net/eng/imamreza.php?id=5732 http://revista.ieee.es

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