Iran, but from whom?

Yesterday, the Washington Post posed a very interesting question:

The seizure of 15 British sailors raises the question: Who's running Iran and how should we deal with them?

Here is my response:

I agree with one of the previous, anonymous posts: Iran is a Democracy. That means that Iran is run by its own people in the form of the officials they elect. How would an American feel if someone were to say that GW Bush is running America? Really, he is not running the country; he is sharing that power with two other branches of government. The problem is that we know so little, in general, about Iran and its political system because we are fed an overly simplistic view of how the Iranian government functions. (I understand this phenomenon because I am an American living in Germany and what the Germans actually understand about our government is also very over-simplified.)

From what I have read of the posts up to this point, I don't think that anyone really knows the answer to this complex question of "who's running Iran". It reminds me of life immediately after 9/11. Afghanistan? Where is that? Why do they hate us? The Taliban? Never heard of it. What was amazing, though, is how people became very quickly educated on this far-away, previously unknown land because of the attacks.

Now that potential conflict is before us, we should take it upon ourselves to become educated about the inner workings of the government of Iran. The lack of clear response to the question here is a perfect example of how little we know.

Isn't there some educated person out there who could give us a quick rundown of the basics of Iranian politics in a non-biased way?