Reuel Marc Gerecht has thoughts on the situation. There must be hope of success for success to gain traction in the face of persistent Iranian suppression of dissent:
When regimes start to crack, the unthinkable becomes thinkable. Ayatollah Khamenei’s supporters could start to wonder whether their influence could survive in a more open political system. Iranian journalists are reporting that former guardsmen who’ve joined the opposition are signaling their one-time brothers that they could have a soft landing in a new order. However much the regime has worked to brainwash its security force (“the bulwark against disbelief”), if more Iranians are killed, rank-and-file guardsmen may suspend their belief and choose not to shoot.
It strikes me that think tanks, universities, NGOs, and labor unions should sponsor a conference on the subject of how to integrate and rebuild Iranian social, economic, and governing institutions following the fall of the mullah regime. Let them write the plan for the "Phase IV" stage of what happens after the fall of the mullah dictatorship.
If Iran's people can see--and believe in--what is on the other side of the great bulwark that the regime tries mightily to keep standing, the Iranian people might move from Twittering the king to actually killing him--and find democracy and hope for a better future as their Shia brethren in Iraq are building.
