It's Anni!!

Yeah, hopefully, we're seeing the start of the rejection of Islamic Revolutionary Extremism and the implementation of something more free. Although it'll still be an Islamic country, so in relative terms it'll still hardly be what an average American would call "free". Still, though, the beginning of a rejection of the radical islamic militancy would be a great start.

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Something's worth noting: Reporters based in Tehran have said that many of the actual law enforcement officials - and believe it or not, the Revolutionary Guard - have not been the ones getting extreme with the protestors. They've been oddly (and relatively) mild in their attempts to get them to break up. It's been the religious paramilitary force - the "basij" - that have been committing the atrocities. Granted, reporters have to be circumspect in what they're saying, but if it's true, this is a harkening back to the days of the Shah, where the secret police ended up unwittingly aiding the revolutionaries by not intensely suppressing the protests back then. This feels very much like a "what goes around comes around" story because of that.

And as another angle on those reports (LA Times reporter Borzou Daragahi is the only name who I can recall, but there are others): What does it say about the situation that even the police and Revolutionary Guard have deep internal splits on opinion regarding the protestors? Seems to me that there's actually a deep zeitgeist against that regime that's seated so far in the society that it affects groups you wouldn't normally think would have elements supporting protest. That's significant.