Even as unprecedented protests broke out on the streets after the June 12 disputed presidential election, the most stinging backlash from authorities has come away from the crowds through roundups and targeted arrests, according to witnesses and human rights organizations. They say plainclothes security agents have also put dozens of the country's most experienced pro-reform leaders behind bars.
The Iranian government says only that unspecified figures responsible for fomenting unrest have been taken into custody.
The arrests have drained the pool of potential leaders of a protest movement that claims President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stole the election by fraud.They also point to the potential for high-profile trials — and serious sentences — before a special judicial forum created to handle cases from the unrest.
With the main reformist candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi under constant police surveillance, protests demanding a new vote have withered. Many of those rounded up during demonstrations have been released within days.
But most of those detained in raids against potential opposition remain in custody. That has spread fear among Mousavi supporters and left the opposition movement reeling.
The regime has wisely avoided mass murder that would test the loyalty of security forces ordered to commit a massacre on the streets.
Even if the revolt is fizzling in Iran, the right thing to do is support those who want more freedom.
What is really puzzling to me is the apparent argument by some observers that it is progress to strip away the veneer of "Islamic" from the "Islamic republic" and showing the regime to just be your basic dictatorship. Getting a plain dictatorship rather than Islamic republic is a sorry sort of victory, if you ask me. People being arrested and killed by secular thugs is no noticable improvement over being arrested and killed by religious thugs.
We should try to bend events because this crisis may not be over. I might be premature in thinking it is dead, depending on what is going on inside Iran that I can't see. Protesters might be quietly seeking broader strength or factions within the government itself may see advantages to siding with the protesters.
Even if our actions are futile in turning Iran into a better government, it is good to be on the right side of history in this struggle. One day, the good guys could win. And they'll remember we stood with them when they risked all and all we had to risk was "engagement" with an inherently untrustworthy regime.
Don't think that supporting Mousavi in this crisis means we are supporting Moussavi. We need to support the man who would break the rigged system that perpetuates mullah rule. And who knows, Mousavi might become more because of those who support him:
As Mousavi hovers between Gorbachev and Yeltsin, between reformer and revolutionary, between figurehead and leader, the revolution hangs in the balance. The regime may neutralize him by arrest or even murder. It may buy him off with offers of safety and a sinecure. He may well prefer to let this cup pass from his lips.
But choose he must, and choose quickly. This is his moment and it is fading rapidly. Unless Mousavi rises to it, or another rises in his place, Iran's democratic uprising will end not as Russia 1991, but as China 1989.
I've noted that even our revolution started with our efforts to assert our rights as Englishmen. Only a year later did we seek independence.
Support the good guys. Even if the good guys can't win this fight. It is about them, and not us, if you'll recall.
