Crumbling Tower

Over the past couple of days, stories about what has happened to the protesters arrested in Iran have begun to emerge. Here in the US, we enjoy great freedom when it comes to protesting being that it is a guaranteed right under our constitution. We can assemble a protest on any sidewalk in any city and expect that the most that would be hurled at us would be insults. Not so in Iran where in the weeks after the recent election many protesters have been killed and many more have been jailed and beaten.

In the wake of the Presidential elections nearly two months past, Ahmadinejad's regime unleashed the Basij militia, it's own political dissent stomping machine, to round up protesters and engage in enough fear mongering to deter any more protesting. The bodies started to pile up early on in the violent crackdown. Despite Iran's complete reporting blackout of the protests, some protesters were able to get coverage out over user input sites like youtube, where the footage of the death of the Iranian girl dubbed "Neda" became the rallying cry of the opposition.

Official numbers from the Iranian government put the death toll at twenty, but independent reports suggest that the true number is over one hundred. Even more shocking news is that bodies showing signs of great abuse have been coming out of the detention centers where protesters are being held. Those who experienced the ordeal and lived through are affraid to tell their tale out of fear of reprisal. But, there are the brave few who have stepped forward to share their stories of horror.

Dark, putrid cells filled past capacity with detainees. Constant beatings from the guards. Various forms of psychological and physical abuse. The abuse got so bad that, once a prominent conservative politician's son was beaten to death, Ayatollah Khamenei had to step in and close the Kahrizak detention center. Instead of this helping the situation, however, the very fact that Iran's supreme leader had to intervene has galvanized the opposition and even sent some conservatives to the other side. The fact of the matter is that it should never have gotten to the point where a detention center needed to be closed.

The gut check here is interesting. Ahmadinejad's regime seems to have blinked and taken a step back. They realize that their brutal tactics are now turning the people against them and it certainly hasn't been long enough for people to forget about the accusations of corruption and fraud during the Presidential election. Iran is sure to get criticism from all sides, internationally, now that the details of protester abuses are coming out. The internal pressure is building and the political opposition doesn't appear to be letting up. Frankly, Ahmadinejad and Khamenei are out of options. They can't continue the violent crackdown because it will just turn more of their allies against them. They can't keep blaming foreign influences (read: the West) for their political turmoil because it's becoming clear that it is self-inflicted. They can't keep dodging questions of legitimacy because it's empowering the opposition. They have only one move left: start making concessions.