The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    Prophetic or not?

    By Ripper on Sun, 06/21/2009 - 5:04pm |
    Six days ago, when Josh asked whether Bill Keller and Michael Slackman were correct in their Times piece asserting that Iran's clerics had the upper hand, I responded with this email to Josh:

    Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's "victory" in Iran's presidential election is no sign that the regime's hand has grown stronger. It is, in fact, a sign of the opposite: an admission of how much open deception and brute force is required to rule Iran's defiant ranks of reformers. The ayatollahs and Ahmadinejad certainly have the upper hand, but the die of revolution is being cast even as the government cracks down. This is no Tiananmen square. The Iranian people are too well educated, too Westernized, too experienced in bomb-making to be crushed under the heel of a fascist regime as brazen as Nazi Germany's. Thuggishly putting down the protests in Tehran will ensure that the widespread resistance goes underground, where it will lay the foundation for reform at a moment of it's own choosing.

    Was I right? Wrong? Or have events of the past week rendered any earlier assessment irrelevant? Your thoughts, please.