New Iranian Revolution

Iran is experiencing the beginnings of a new revolution. Ahmadinejad has officially been declared the winner of the election, but he, and the conservative clerics that pull his strings, have already lost the battles to come.

Things have changed in Iran. There is rioting in the streets. News services are reporting over 100.000 in the streets of Tehran. Even though the government has banned the rallies, and despite the fact that they are shooting at the people, the demonstrations are continuing. Moussavi has vowed to continue to press his case despite threats against him and the arrest of other opposition leaders.

The clerics and the military establishment, the Revolutionary Guard, must respond. The GOP of Iran, they are shrinking and isolated. Attempting to maintain control by any means necessary, they are responding in the repressive manner of tyrants everywhere.

Like the Republicans in America, the Iranian establishment has demographics working against it too. Iran is a young nation, and the youth are no longer willing to take the repression of rights and totalitarian controls. Women are also at the forefront of the new revolution, no longer willing to settle for a life in the shadows.

Internationally, Iran has been effectively neutralized. The government of Iran may be more difficult to deal with for the foreseeable future, but this will be mostly due to the fact that the government will have to turn its attention inward. There will be little ability to successfully do anything on the world stage as the legitimacy of the government is called into question. Efforts to control internal dissent and discord will ultimately backfire.

The new Iranian Revolution began not with the election or its likely fraudulent outcomes, rather it began with the run up to the election and in the aftermath of the same election, where the people came together. Awareness that the power structure is fraudulent can not be suppressed. The more the actions of the opposition are met with brutality, the more illegitimate the government becomes to the Persian peoples.

The youth of the country have time on their side. The old guard is just that, old, and no longer revolutionary. Ahmadinejad and the ruling clerics may have continued their reign for the short run, but ultimately, the seeds of change have already taken root. The rot and detritus of continuing repression will only serve to nourish the resistance, which sooner or later, will bloom.