ARTICLE: A Tense Calm on Streets of Tehran, By Thomas Erdbrink, Washington Post, June 22, 2009

The quiet inevitably comes. And now the opposition realizes it won't shout the mullahs out of power a la Ceaucescu.

So the questions becomes, what organization now results?

Do we wish to support? Absolutely. But only in the most indirect sense. Still have to deal with the regime, and the nukes. We play bad cop still, Europe more easily the good. Support to the opposition best applied through private means, like the big Iranian ex-pat population in the U.S. Anything with USG fingerprints is bad.

And no, we don't particularly need to beam in "freedom radio." The Twitter connectivity proves that.

But you begin to see the utility of having a fairly democratic regime in Iraq right next door. Very unsettling in a good way.