ARTICLE: Police Unleash Force On Rally in Tehran, By Thomas Erdbrink and William Branigin, Washington Post, June 21, 2009

Sad to say, this is how I expected the unrest to unfold: increasingly amounts of repression and intransigence from the authorities, wearing down the people.

I never had much expectation of a rapid fall.

The question for me has been, what do the Iranian people take from this experience? Either it mobilizes for the longer struggle, where some real potential exists, or it demoralizes further.

Either way, Iran's leadership is incentivized--more than ever--to push ahead on the bomb. A near-death experience for the regime will not dissuade it but make it bolder. Now, more than ever, Tehran wants to prove itself immune from regime-changing pressure from outside.