Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Opposing the Mullahs

Well, tomorrow is the day on which leaders of the Iranian regime have promised to "stun" the West.

Michael Ledeen gives his perspective on the context but not on the event. An excerpt:

I believe that the Iranian regime has assembled the largest armed force in history to protect it from the Iranian people’s righteous indignation on Thursday the 11th. There will be hundreds of thousands of police, revolutionary guards, Basij, and people bused in from the countryside to Tehran.

Additionally, the regime is shutting down communications, especially in Tehran. Iranian Tweeters say internet is largely gone, and cell phones are not working. None of this is new, and in the past the dissidents have managed to beat the censors; it will be interesting to see if the mullahs’ trusted advisers (mostly Chinese) are more effective this time. They certainly have failed in China, and the Iranian authorities have demonstrated an almost supernatural ability to screw up their own plans.

2 comments:

Kathy said...

Perhaps it's just a good hard saber-rattle? http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/12/world/middleeast/12iran.html?hp

Michael Wade said...

Kathy,

Based on what we've seen so far, your guess is a good one!

Michael