The senior clerics appear willing to fight to the death, and their opponents are, more and more, willing to deal with that head on. Meanwhile, no matter how successful the government was in suppressing the demonstrations in the capital, it was a defeat for the government. More people were radicalized, and dissention in the clergy became visible. The Iranian Islamic radicals are losing. Long term, they are lost. But like any tyranny in decline, there's the danger that the clerical dictatorship will go out with a bang, not, as the Soviet Union did, with a whimper. And if it is with a bang, it could be a very loud and destructive bang if the clerics have nuclear weapons.
The mullahs, meanwhile, are making the best of Western sanctions by using it as an excuse to provide the carrots to their guys with the sticks, by focusing their more limited funds on their loyalists:
A long-awaited radical overhaul of Iran's economy that has seen the scrapping of state subsidies is being used to punish and intimidate opponents of President Mahmud Ahmadinejad, analysts say.
Individuals and families deemed politically suspect or disloyal to Ahmadinejad's government are reportedly being denied cash handouts brought in to replace the extensive subsidy regime.
The claim, based on studies partly conducted by economists in Iran, comes after Ahmadinejad announced the end of subsidies in a move that saw fuel prices soar by 400 percent overnight.
Subsidies on a wide range of products are to be replaced by monthly cash payments of $40 per head, ostensibly targeted to those deemed most in need. The government has presented the plan as necessary to save the treasury up to $100 billion a year at a time when Iran's economy is under increasing strain from international sanctions imposed in response to its nuclear program.
However, Mehrdad Emadi, an Iranian economist based in London, says the compensation payments are being closely screened by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and volunteer Basij militia.
"You can see a political screening of people and categorizing them into groups -- who are with us and groups who have not made the right level of effort to be with us," Emadi says.
This works to keep the loyalists loyal to the regime. This review by the loyalists may cow the opposition or split them, as people try to qualify for aid. Of course, the limits of government financing that led to the elimination of general subsidies mean that the mullahs can't grant many of the opposition this aid. Further, this could also just push the opposition further in the direction of radical solutions.
All our choices are ugly. Using military force is unpredictable. The so-called peaceful option of sanctions could be even bloodier by orders of magnitude. And the option of doing nothing and letting Iran's mullahs get nuclear weapons is so bad that I hope nobody really thinks that we can learn to live with the mullah bomb.
We could get lucky, and wake up one morning to find that the Iranian military has overthrown the mullah regime. But I'm not the sort who believes that gambling really pays off.
