The Iranian Quagmire

Despite the Guardian Council's recent suggestion that a partial recount of the disputed Iranian presidential election's ballots may be conducted, an Iran expert said that a re-run of the election is the only way to restore confidence in the government.

Ali Ansari, director of the Institute of Iranian Studies at St. Andrews University, believes there's little point recounting the results of a foregone election.

He shared analysis about the Iranian elections at the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London this morning.

Ansari said Iran's leadership remains divided about how to proceed, making statements designed to quell public unrest even as it allows police brutality on the streets of Tehran.

The scale of the protests plaguing Iran's capital is unprecedented, and the government's violent response is fanning the flames, said Ansari.

Ansari says the Iranian leadership will only go so far to protect President Ahmedinejad, who can best be described as a man with a "knack for being able to offend anyone" and whose "unpredictability is predictable."

Ansari says the only compromise by which the country's leadership can keep him in office and save face would be to force Ahmedinejad to heal the wounds inflicted on the Iranian people through this election process. Only in doing so could he survive as a leader.

Even if the leadership follows this way forward, Ansari warns that things will get worse before they get better, with a long, hot summer ahead, and plenty more protests to keep Tehran simmering, if not bursting with occasional flames of fury about the government's failure to conduct fair elections.

By CBS News Producer Amy Guttman in London