What to watch for in Iran
Josh Tucker examines the situation on the ground in Iran from the decision-making perspective of the individual protester:
1) Will the planned recount go ahead, and or will Mousavi succeed in forcing a revote? While the latter still seems very unlikely, it would be an extremely significant development, demonstrating that the position of Khamenei is much weaker than we thought only a few days ago.
2) Will the security forces in Iran move beyond what they are doing now – basically low levels of violence and apparently detaining opposition leaders – and unleash a more concentrated show of force (e.g., something in the spirit of what happened in Tiananmen Square or Andijan, Uzbekistan)?
3) Will the Iranian authorities take further steps to shut down technological means of communication being utilized by the opposition, such as text messaging and Twitter?
4) Can the opposition continue to deliver large numbers of people into the streets as the protests head towards a second week? One of the truly fascinating things about the Orange Revolution in Ukraine was the shear number of days that people continued to protest, even in the dead of winter. It will be very informative to watch if the protests in Iran have similar staying power, although of course this likely to be in part a function of the previous two points.
Related posts:
- Is Iran a weak competitive authoritarian regime?
- Explaining the diversity of views on Iran
- Iran and just revolution
- Iran: The Times They Are A-Changin’
- When may people disobey?
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