Word: ahmadinejad
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...after the election, two crowds gathered in front of the Ministry of Interior - Mousavi and Ahmadinejad supporters, several hundred of each, separated by the police. They chanted their slogans back and forth, and I was reminded of the wonderful street debates I'd seen several nights earlier. But suddenly the police, on motorcycles and on foot, dressed like starship troopers in body armor and brandishing billy clubs, charged into the Mousavi crowd. People began to run; some were knocked down; bodies were flying. And the Ahmadinejad crowd began to cheer...
...impossible for an outsider, in Iran for 10 days, to sift through the governmental opacity, the contradictory demonstrations, and predict what comes next. It seems likely that no matter how many people flood the streets in protest, the Supreme Leader will continue to back Ahmadinejad. It also seems likely that while Barack Obama should continue to press for negotiations, he shouldn't be too optimistic about the prospect of success...
...situation is all the more dangerous and unpredictable because the election and its aftermath appear to have surprised all the major players, forcing them to improvise their responses to a fast-changing situation. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ayatullah Ali Khamenei appear to have been taken aback by the surge in support for the pragmatic conservative candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi. The decision to hastily announce what many say was an improbable landslide victory for Ahmadinejad touched off an unprecedented wave of protests that have rocked Khamenei, who has since backtracked by ordering an investigation into claims of voter fraud...
Violence and the threat of violence have not deterred the demonstrators, and Mousavi is showing no inclination to back down just yet. Khamenei appears to be scrambling for a compromise that will persuade Mousavi to end the demonstrations while keeping Ahmadinejad in the presidency. But the outcome of the battle of wills may depend on how the key players read the balance of forces on the street and in the councils of the regime. The situation is delicately poised; what follows are four scenarios that could resolve...
...thus have to calibrate their dissent. More important, an unarmed popular movement can topple an authoritarian regime only if the security forces switch sides or stay neutral. But Iran's key security forces - the élite Revolutionary Guards Corps and the Basij militia - are bastions of support for Ahmadinejad. And they have used hardly a fraction of their repressive power. Also, while the opposition draws far larger crowds, there are still millions of Iranians strongly backing Ahmadinejad. So even if the government is unable to destroy the opposition, it's unlikely that the opposition will be in a position...