Iran's people just might win this one

some of the hundreds of thousands of Mousavi supporters marching in silence today in central Tehran (green was the signature color of the opposition's campaign)

I think they're going to make it. There will be more demonstrations tomorrow, and the protests are likely to be more broadly-based and increasingly countrywide. A general strike has been called for the same day.

Iran's twentieth-century political history is a complex story, and the second half especially includes a far-from-innocent involvement on the part of the U.S. [fed first by our lust for oil and Cold War hysteria - okay, it was actually pretty disgusting], but today it suddenly appears that the people who created and maintained one of the greatest civilizations in human history just may be about to emerge from the tyranny of a crude religious fanaticism which had briefly hijacked both their own best hopes and the world's admiration for their magnificent culture.

I'd like to add that I wish that ordinary U.S. citizens had the kind of political courage being displayed on the streets of Iran today; We could certainly use it. Beginning last November I've been expressing my doubts about whether we were going to get what we had voted for. I should be writing more about my increasing fear and disgust, but I'll wait for another occasion.

ADDENDUM: I just saw this Ted Rall cartoon. Although I said I wouldn't go into Obama's failures now, I couldn't resist the adding this note. I do this even though Rall doesn't address our hope-and-change President's equally disturbing failure to address the economic meltdown (instead handing over the government to Wall Street), and his cynical reversals on gay rights issues.

[image, from the Guardian, by Abedin Taherkenareh/European Press Photo]