ARTICLE: Understanding Iran: Repression 101, By DAVID E. SANGER, New York Times, June 27, 2009

Which model of authoritarian-shifting/evolving-to-something-else might Iran fit? South Korea? China? Burma? What?

"It's too early to draw any conclusions about which model fits in Iran," said Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was born in Warsaw and had the thankless task, as Jimmy Carter's national security adviser, of trying to establish relations with the leaders of Iran's revolution in 1979. "But in this case, I have to say I'm pessimistic in the short term, and optimistic in the long term." That pretty well captures the mood of Mr. Obama's advisers.

Good bit from Litwak:

Robert Litwak, the author of "Regime Change," a study of how modern regimes have fallen, said last week: "The truth here is that a soft landing for Iranian society is not a soft landing for the leadership." So far, he observed last week, "the Iranians are not as sufficiently united against the regime as the Poles were in the late '80s." Moreover, the Polish regime was more fragile: Because it was considered a Soviet tool, the opposition could play to nationalist emotions.

But I think he discounts nationalism too easily as a source for change, so long as Obama continues to deny Tehran a preferred enemy.