Iran expert Ali Ansari says he expects the protests to continue, saying that Iran is in for a “long hot summer.”
Me, I wouldn’t be surprised if the regime rolls tanks and pulls a Tiananmen Square, as I told Neil MacFarquhar of the NYT, whose piece today I thought very perceptive. (Not saying that a Tiananmen strategy would work. The shah tried it in September 1978 and it backfired by causing public revulsion over ‘Black Friday.’ Just saying I wouldn’t be surprised.)
Protesters are even now targeting Khamenei directly, not just denouncing dictatorship. , according to Robert Tait at the Guardian, chanting, ‘”Seiyed Ali Pinochet, Chile Iran nemishe” (Seiyed Ali Pinochet, Iran won’t become Chile).’ This chant is consistent with a ‘Third Worldist’ (including international left solidarity) tinge to the Green Revolution. I.e. it is not the chant of a North Tehran businessman but of someone who came to consciousness as a revolutionary in the 1970s and 1980s. (H/t to Robert Malley for the ‘third worldist’ discourse concept, which he applied to 1960s and 1970s Algeria.)
Tens of thousands of pro-Mousavi protesters again came out in Iran on Wednesday, as anticipated. This despite the regime’s attempt to forbid demonstrations and prevent news coverage of them, including not only Western news organizations but Iranian weblogs and facebook. The regime is threatening to charge bloggers who cover the demonstrations with libel against the Iranian nation.
They haven’t read Ernest Renan, who observed that in order to study the nation, first you have to betray it.
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