[plalleste]

This is so fucking encouraging.

I've prepared myself to believe that the military will brush back the Iranian protests, but that their time is coming much sooner than anticipated.

Their military is made up of the same kind of demographics as their society is in terms of religion. Conservative hardliners mixed with secular service members. The military in Iran in all likelihood would not be the peaceful arbiter of a revolution the way we saw in Egypt, but you have to wonder how badly the Iranians want to know how far they can get this time.

An estimated 350,000 were out in Tehran yesterday. Not a bad start.

Iran is remarkably like America; the cleptocracy and it's indentured working poor who've traded away their freedom for a false sense of security, and then the new generation, comprised primarily by those under 30, educated, can function very highly in english, and want to govern themselves just like us.