The game is already over for Ahmedinejad and his puppet-master.
They are making martyrs there, in Iran.
I'm not going to post this picture on my front page, it's too gruesome. But to understand what's going on, you need to see this. And you need to see why, in the ultimate scheme of things, the current establishment in Iran has already lost. More below the fold.
Martyrdom is a significant cultural trope among Iranians. In the movie Persepolis, you see a stylized re-enactment of the demonstrations in the streets during the anti-Shah revolution. One demonstrator falls, shot by an agent of the Shah's SAVAK secret police. A multitude take the body and lift it up, a gesture of honoring the death of a martyr. Later, the leftists who the Satrapi family support are mowed down by Revolutionary Guard gunfire. And of course, Uncle Anouche, Marji's hero, came to a tragic fate, again with an air of martyrdom.
Martyrdom is, to Iranians, the ultimate badge that a cause is just, and that the one who killed the martyr is wicked to the core. And now the onus of being the one responsible for a martyr's death -- or several martyrs in this case -- is now on the current regime in Iran.
Basically the game is over for them. The current regime is doomed. It might end slowly, it might end quickly, but it is already over. When the first protestor was shot by a paramilitary thug, they sealed their fate.
I'm not going to post this picture on my front page, it's too gruesome. But to understand what's going on, you need to see this. And you need to see why, in the ultimate scheme of things, the current establishment in Iran has already lost. More below the fold.
Martyrdom is a significant cultural trope among Iranians. In the movie Persepolis, you see a stylized re-enactment of the demonstrations in the streets during the anti-Shah revolution. One demonstrator falls, shot by an agent of the Shah's SAVAK secret police. A multitude take the body and lift it up, a gesture of honoring the death of a martyr. Later, the leftists who the Satrapi family support are mowed down by Revolutionary Guard gunfire. And of course, Uncle Anouche, Marji's hero, came to a tragic fate, again with an air of martyrdom.
Click to viewMartyrdom is, to Iranians, the ultimate badge that a cause is just, and that the one who killed the martyr is wicked to the core. And now the onus of being the one responsible for a martyr's death -- or several martyrs in this case -- is now on the current regime in Iran.
Basically the game is over for them. The current regime is doomed. It might end slowly, it might end quickly, but it is already over. When the first protestor was shot by a paramilitary thug, they sealed their fate.