Graeme Wood, a card carrying member of the "cold-water bucket brigade with respect to this revolt's chance of being upgraded….to a full-blown revolution" was surprised by the intensity of the recent Iranian protests:
I do hope to hear more about the conditions outside Tehran, and away from the predictable sites of unrest. When I start reading reports of riots in Tabriz, Shiraz, and Yazd, the possibility of someday visiting a small grave, barely marked with the name "Khamenei," will seem considerably less remote.
At the Dish we do what we can to forage data from the sealed-off country. But my sense is that Ashura was a turning point. This is a psychological and spiritual struggle at its core. It is about the very legitimacy of the Khamenei junta's right to claim religious and political leadership of Iranians. The election itself was a coup de foudre, but the junta's response to the vote was disastrously ill-footed. As Machiavelli taught, the only thing more dangerous than allowing dissent to take hold is to suppress it incompetently.
Like Cheney, Khamenei could not control the torture he unleashed on prisoners and, like Cheney, has lost any moral standing among democracy-supporters as a result. The brutality in the open streets and behind closed doors at nightfall and in the college dorms of the next generation confirmed the illegitimacy of the regime. The violence on Ashura made it much worse. And the strength and resilience of the Green Movement has endured, despite a lack of central leadership.
Despite neocon protestations – it's always about them – Obama's refusal to be baited by the regime and turned into propaganda tool for the junta was a very helpful move. The only argument we hear from Khamenei's goons is that the resistance is entirely a CIA plot, funded by the Brits and Americans. If Obama had done the emotionally satisfying thing and rallied the American government explicitly behind the revolution, he would have hurt more than helped. Ditto the sanctions game. His dedication to restraint and pragmatism is easily the best way to achieve the regime change that alone will alter the dynamics of the war on Jihadist terror.
With each demonstration of their continued grip on the popular imagination, from June through December, the Green Movement gains legitimacy and the regime loses its. Like the original revolution, this comes in waves, each one washing a little further over the high water-mark of theocratic-military rule. At some point, there will have to be massive violence unleashed by the junta – a true Stalinist terror-state move – to prevent a collapse. Or the dam will break.
February 11 will be the next high tide.
Reihan adds his two cents. Map from the student protests of 16 Azar.
The Dish 