ABSTRACT
Today what the factional bifurcation [in Iran] between the Liberal Left Reformists and the Religious Right Conservatives partially reveals and thus successfully conceals is a larger political fragmentation and the gradual dissipation of the whole ideological foregrounding of the Islamic Revolution, some two centuries after its historical formation. By virtue of its doctrinal disposition, Shi'ism throughout its history has fed the revolutionary aspirations of the most radical social movements. Shi'ism is predicated on a paradox: It fails upon success, just like the Sisyphus. This is the defining moment of Shi'ism because it has never surpassed its Karbala Paradox. As a paradox, Shi'ism rests on its inaugural moment of being born as a refusal to let go of the charismatic moment of Muhammed's prophetic mission. The Islamic Republic in Iran is not the first instance when the mutation of Shi'ism from revolutionary protest to dominant state ideology has robbed it of its own critical claim to legitimacy.
