al Jazeera: Iran on the brink?

Iran on the brink?

By Mark LeVine


....It seems that the Iranian elite has been caught similarly off-guard, and is still trying to read its own society to understand how broad is the societal discontent reflected in the mass protests....

....In this case, it would have little choice but to cave in to the protesters' demands or face losing its legitimacy in the eyes of the broader Iranian public, particularly if large numbers of protesters are arrested, injured or killed.

The greatest degree of uncertainty surrounds a scenario in which the power elite both concludes that the mass protests reflect deep-seated discontent by a large segment of the population, yet at the same time believes it has a narrow window of opportunity to deal with this situation forcibly before losing control to the rapidly encroaching street politics....

Iran long ago lost the singular, collective will that enabled the revolution; the protesters are no longer imbued with the idea of bi-kodi, or self-annihilation, martyrdom and complete self-sacrifice that toppled the Shah and helped the country withstand eight years of brutal war with Iraq.

The majority of Iranians, particularly young people, even, one can imagine, the poorer and less educated ones overly represented among the Revolutionary Guard would prefer to focus on its counterpart, khod-sazi, or self-construction, as the better attitude with which to build their society today....


http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2009/06/200961781431119985.html

I'm really liking Al Jazeera. It's like reading real news...no Britney, no Paris, no crapola.

CNN? Faux? GE? blah.

called a terrorist sympathizer, I'm sure. (by my hometown network, LOL ! )