A lot of people with important-sounding titles pontificate on what lies ahead, but whom are they kidding? It’s like we’re watching kids playing around with vials of highly volatile chemicals.
Egypt in February 2011 is not Iran in January 1979, yet I am reminded of the fate of Sadegh Ghotbzadeh, once Iran’s foreign minister, ultimately destroyed by the man and movement he devoted his life to bring to power.
The truly significant result of the suppressed Iranian revolt is that the most important Islamist radical movement in the contemporary world has demonstrated that it has become a brutally repressive dictatorship whose leaders rig elections and beat down clear popular demands.