It is easy to buy the underdog line. After all, due to the poverty of means available to them thanks to the wisdom of their overlords, these protesters have resorted to using such loathsome forums as Twitter just to get any sort of message to the world beyond the Iranian firewall.
However, things are much more complicated than that. I find the sober analysis of either David P. Goldman or Stratfor's George Friedman to be the most succinct and reliable.
To sum them up:
First, the Iranian uprising is confined only to the middle class. Western media has made the mistake of relying on Twitter, which can only be accessed by the well-heeled, English-speaking segment of Iran. Needless to say, this segment is very small. As Friedman noted, a revolution will only succeed if the unrest spreads from the agitating group to other segments that would have been loyal to the regime. So far, the protests are severely localized. There are no fires in Isfahan or Qom. Besides, Ahmadinejad's constant threats against the corrupt rich make him far more popular amongst the toughest barriers to any revolution; the rural and impoverished classes.
Second, the whether or not the election was fixed will matter little. What we are seeing through the awful lens that is Twitter is a tipping point moment where the sons and (especially) daughters* of societal liberalization square off against the old guard of clerics and hardened fanatics. The truth is that this is a war between two old guard factions: the rich mullah Hashemi Rafsanjani and his ally Mir Hossein Moussavi on one side and Ayatollah Khomeini and the populist Ahmadinejad on the other. Fraud or no fraud, the Ayatollah holds the power to tip the point, and as an astute politician, his analysis of the field led him to pick Ahmadinejad. The reality is that those students risking their lives are but pawns in a larger game between clerics.
(* As an aside, from what I've noticed, ever since it happened in Lebanon, showing pretty "revolutionaries" has been considered an essential part of the process.)
Third, Moussavi and Rafsanjani would be no different from Ahmadinejad when it comes to the West. It was Rafsanjani, after all, who paid to bring those centerfuges to Iran in the first place. (I personally doubt, however, the Ahmadinejad and Moussavi are interchangeable in this regard. I suspect Moussavi will be easier to talk to, if only because he will be easily trapped by promises made.)
Fourth, the Iranian establishment's interests go beyond facing down the United States. With the Taliban in Pakistan agitating for more persecution of the Shiite minority, and Iran rapidly losing it's place in the regional power structure due to a rapidly failing demography and economy, the Ayatollah's main concern is showing off Iranian militancy, which the nutjob Ahmadinejad is far more suited to do than the urbane Moussavi.
Fifth, as the students themselves acknowledge, their cause stands or falls on support from the West. With Obama confined to making general statements against some vague injustice while always indicating that he will "negotiate" with any stooge the regime puts in front of him, these students are doomed. The only US President they could have counted on stepped down twenty years ago after serving two terms, and has since passed away. (Although, they stood a much better chance with the previous president than with this lame duck.)
I defer to the analysis of greater men since, in my mind, I mostly concur.
The heart is a different matter however.
Let me state in no uncertain terms that I absolutely loathe the Islamic Republic. Not Iran (or Persia, if you'd like) and its fine people, but that half-assed attempt at government and statehood they have in those parts. For me, the Islamic "Republic" is what happens when Greco-Christian ideas such as representative democracy and respect for innate human rights are corrupted when mixed with Islamic ideas of governance and justice. Not that I think that it is impossible for Muslims to have democracy. I just think its impossible for Shariah and democracy to co-exist, at least in their full forms.
So, my sympathy lies with those brave souls fighting in the streets for the recognition of some poignantly Western (and I dare say, universal) ideas, such as human right and human dignity. They may be a small, manipulated class, but they poured as much heart into their fight as the peasants of the Vendee did when the masters of the French Revolution (another thing I absolutely loathe, along with that piggish era Europeans have the temerity to call "the Enlightenment".) decided that some people are more equal than others. I know the images are disturbing, but free men can ill afford to simply look away.
And then, there are the martyrs.
Neda, the face of a fallen revolt
Her name meant "voice" in Farsi. She had a full life ahead of her. However, instead of bowing and accepting the game being played above her, she stuck her neck out and was promptly gunned down by Revolutionary Guards in motorcycles. There is a reason I never supported the notion of women in the military, and that reason is that I believe no woman should ever be shot. (Dying in battle for the greater good is, or ought to be, one of the male gender's specific burdens...compensation for not bearing children...more on this some other time...) Any regime that could callously treat its women like target practice, for no other reason than they were there when the regime was out for blood, deserves the dustbin of history.
In the war between the heart and the head, I always go with the head. Its a brute who is ruled by his passions.
However, hope still remains. Maybe I will see people topple the statue of the Ayatollah within my lifetime. I've seen Lenin fall. Why not Khomeini?
Update: To whomever is responsible for that "convert to islam" ad on my Google sidebar, fuck you!
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