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Respected individuals identified with the outside world but not politically active are among those rounded up in the Iranian regime's post-election crackdown.

Published in June 2009, this map provides an overview of global Islamic finance markets. Charts and graphics include Sharia-compliant financial assets by country (Dec 2007), Takaful operators by country (2008), Leading Islamic banks by asset values (Dec 2007), and Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) inter-regional trade

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: Of Iran's international critics he said, "The 84%-plus participation by eligible voters is a major blow… to the oppressive system ruling the world." "This is a great victory at a time and condition when the whole material, political and propaganda facilities outside of Iran and sometimes... inside Iran, were total mobilised against our people," he said. He also dismissed the unrest as being like the "passions after a soccer match."

Rapidly spreading protests are seen as a challenge not just to the election result and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but also to Rahbar (Supreme Leader) Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – and may eventually challenge the basis of the Islamic Republic (although this latter challenge still seems a long way off).

Once debate was unleashed in Iran’s election, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s maverick foreign policy came to play an important role in shaping opinion, among ordinary voters who see beyond populist sentiments to count the cost of Iran’s isolation as well as among elite players who have increasingly come to view the incumbent as a liability.

Two years into his presidency, Nicolas Sarkozy is starting to reap the rewards of an election night promise to place the Middle East among the key priorities of French foreign policy. Arab governments now see Paris as a key point of contact and leverage, a useful counterpoint to their traditionally close relations with Washington, and a strategic ally in propping up the peace process and countering the strategic challenge posed by Iran.

Opposition supporters remain passionate about the rightness of their cause, but as Basij and other militia stalked the streets of Tehran, the regime appeared to be regaining the initiative in realpolitik terms as this special issue of GSN went to press.

Rahbar (Supreme Leader) Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s Friday prayers speech at Tehran University on 19 June was awaited with great anticipation; Khamenei normally only makes public appearances to mark Ramadan and the anniversary of the 1979 revolution. Iranian state television promoted his appearance as a major event.

In the aftermath of the election results, security forces cracked down on opposition members, protesters and the media. Over 100 members of reformist groups have been arrested, accused of orchestrating protests and the ensuing violence. Many backers of the defeated candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi have been rounded up.

The widely disputed 12 June presidential elections have led to protests in Iran on a scale not seen since the Islamic Republic’s 1979 revolution. The incumbent candidate Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s seemingly implausible victory with 63% of the vote has led to a further divide in Iranian politics and society.

Given half a chance, Iranians will vote against the establishment – not just in disaffected urban areas, but in the countryside (where incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is widely believed to have the edge), and even within the ruling elite, whose members may swap from faction to faction while maintaining staunch support for Iran’s velayat-e faqih system of clerical rule. Ahmadinejad has made a global career by presenting himself as an underdog – a status that tends to attract Iranian voters (as the reformist Mohammad Khatami found when he beat conservative rivals in 1997). But he has other elite ‘underdogs’ to compete with.

While the Middle East has weathered the global recession better than most regions, the regional dynamics have altered, with the more highly leveraged economies such as Dubai losing ground to more conservative and resource-rich players, led by Saudi Arabia.

As it focuses on what many in Washington view as Iran’s uncomfortable rise up the international pecking order, US analysts are reappraising old ideas about detaching Syria from the so-called Shia Crescent linking Iran and Hizbollah in Lebanon. This so-called ‘Wedge Theory’ argued that a strategic deal with Syria, most likely involving peace with Israel and international rehabilitation, could be used to induce Damascus to end its strategic alliance with Iran and cut off one avenue of support for Hizbollah and Hamas.

Engagement without marriage: Beltway pessimistic as Obama's team prepares to tackle Iran

Whoever wins the Iranian election will have to engage in sustained diplomatic fence-mending. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s apparently thoughtless way with words has cost Iran dear over the past three and a half years. This month, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki has been in Riyadh – where he met King Abdullah Bin Abdelaziz – and Manama, seeking to patch up the latest strains in relationships with Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. He also visited Kuwait, with whom Tehran’s dealings are rather more placid.