People power in Iran?

"Iran’s rural population has historically been very deeply apolitical". This, according to the Economist, is wrong: 66% of poor and rural voters vote as against 33% of the urbanised middle class. But never mind that.

A 'class' analysis doesn't take that modern fact into account: the agent provocateur. In this brilliantly researched article by Seymour Hersh, he shows in vivid detail how America has been priming the pump in Iran:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/07/080707fa_fact_hersh?currentPage=all

Also try : Iran mosque blast plotters admit Israeli, US links: report:

They also admitted carrying out "one or two minor operations," the agency said, without providing further details except to say the group launched military operations a year ago.
http://tinyurl.com/5row5r

Besides, we know that people are dumb: they must and will be led and manipulated. Leo Strauss's Iron Law of Oligarchy has always held true.

"They are openly, and in millions across the country, questioning the legitimacy of the establishment, represented at the moment by Ahmadinejad. The people, in short, have moved beyond Mousavi". Millions of people out of a population of 70 million, most of whom are above 15? That doesn't sound like "the people" to me: it sounds like the impressionistic and ill-educated Gucci class of Iran.

I have seen it happen time and again in Bangladesh: a couple of people take to the streets, and they call it a revolution, when the vast majority is farming or fishing.

The writer mentions the misery index: inflation plus unemployment. Inflation has always done nutty things to people, especially the middle class because they see their savings eroded; unemployment creates the hooligans who take to the streets.

What the writer failed to mention was the multiplication of the number of university students: whenever this happens, society becomes unstable. An educated middle class is the worst calamity that can befall a nation: it led to the violent break-away of East Pakistan from West Pakistan in 1971, to the anti-British attacks of the Bengal terrorists earlier.

A wise government, like Malaysia's and Indonesia's, would have kept tertiary education down to a minimum and maximised primary education. However, sooner or later, tertiary education becomes necessary, and then you have lunatic movements like 'reformasi' and Tiananmen.