Iran’s brutal overreaction

By Max J. Castro
majcastro@gmail.org

Regardless of who really won the Iranian election, the brutal reaction of the theocratic regime to peaceful protests has destroyed any legitimacy the government and its leadership might have hoped to maintain. The disproportionate, bloody actions gave the image of a state at war against a large swath of its own people. The hard-liners may have won the election or they may have stolen it or lost it. What is clear is that they lost their head and the global public relations battle.

The Islamic Republic of Iran has shown the world its ugly face by deploying thugs and other repressive forces against peaceful demonstrators. President Barack Obama has struck the right chord by refusing to meddle while condemning the killings, beatings and arrests. Some Republicans like South Carolina’s Lindsay Graham could not refrain from demagoguery, attacking Obama’s measured response. It would have been a grave error to insert the United States and thus give the regime an excuse to justify its savagery. Obama played it perfectly.

What will emerge from the present conflict? There is a sense that this event is a watershed that signals the beginning of the end of the regime issued from the 1979 revolution. How long of an afterlife it will have is not clear. The system has a mass of supporters, though recent events should have reduced their number. More importantly, the theocratic elite has lost its veneer of unity and legitimacy. And it has sparked a movement of international solidarity.

The role of women, whose rights have been crushed under the rule of the ayatollahs, has been among the most gratifying aspects of the uprising. This is just one of the reasons why life in Iran will never be the same. Fittingly, the murder of Neda Soltan, a 26-year-old woman, has become the iconic event of this uprising.

This movement now has its martyr and its black-clad monsters. It is obvious now there are two Iran’s; the myth of unanimity has been exploded. The green revolution may not succeed, but its legacy will remain as an example for future generations of Iranians. The green revolution is a hopeful harbinger of things to come.