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Dja vu: The crowds in Iran look awfully familiar. And they're just as unpredictable as they were in 1978.

Troops
are out in Iran this week, but in many cases the crowds have grown so large
that the security forces are standing back and letting them swarm silently and
peacefully through the boulevards -- just like in 1978.

Chants
of Allah-o-akbar, God is great,
reverberate from rooftops at night, expressing popular revulsion against the
dictatorial regime -- just like 1978. The government has assaulted university
campuses and shut down the opposition's offices, but these and other crackdowns
have only sparked further protest -- just like 1978.

Are
we witnessing a repeat of the Islamic Revolution that brought down the monarchy
30 years ago? If so, it would be wonderful irony. It would mean that the
children of the revolution -- the large majority of the population that was
born and raised under revolutionary institutions, that went to schools purged
for Islamic purity and was fed Islamically-correct television and radio -- had
devoured the system that nurtured them.

The
irony of the situation is not lost on the protesters themselves. In their text messages
from the streets and their phone calls overseas, the Iranian opposition
exhibits tremendous self-awareness. They speculate constantly about whether the
Islamic revolution is coming full circle.

They
note the parallels between this week's outburst of protest and the heroic
events of 1978, which their revolutionary schoolbooks taught them in great
detail. They liken the closing of universities this week to the shah's closing
of universities in November 1978. They speculate whether this week's marches
are equivalent to the massive Tasua and Ashura marches of December 1978. The
clash earlier this week between a small group of militants and security forces
at a paramilitary base in Tehran may have been an homage to the popular
convergence on an air-force base in Tehran that sparked the final overthrow of
the monarchy in February 1979.

But
the biggest similarity between the current protests and the Islamic revolution
is the population's widespread confusion about what comes next. In a year from
now, people will look back on this week and say that what happened was
inevitable. Whatever happens, they will predict the outcome retroactively.
Already, experts are providing rough drafts for these explanations, such as:

A charismatic and enigmatic opposition leader is serving as a rallying point for
different sectors of society, who all imagine that he shares their varied
political positions; the opposition is too small and divided to pose a serious
threat to the regime.

The main leaders of the opposition movement -- presidential candidate Mir Hossein
Musavi and his ally, former President Mohammad Khatami -- are not calling for a
revolution, only for a resumption of the Islamic Republic's previous electoral
procedures; during the violence of a revolution, moderation often gives way to
more radical demands.

In the months prior to the outburst, oil prices boomed and busted, along with the
global economic downturn; the government still controlled billions of dollars
in reserves that it doled out to supporters through barely disguised giveaways.

The Internet, cell phones, and satellite television have added new networking
capabilities to the age-old rumor mill; access to these technologies is not
universal in Iran, and is being shut down by the government.

The ruling elite is too divided to repress the opposition effectively; the ruling
elite is pulling together and cannot be toppled.

Violent
repression will keep people from protesting much longer; violent repression
will backfire and produce even more protesters.

Concessions
will buy time for the regime while tempers cool; concessions will only whet the
opposition's appetite.

Outrage
and grievance is boiling over; this week's protests are a safety valve blowing
off harmless steam.

In a year's time, some of these experts will crow that events have confirmed their
analyses. Others will quietly remove this week's remarks from their Web sites.

Yet
all of these analyses are wrong, even if events unfold the way they predict.
After all, if you make enough predictions, some are bound to look accurate.
They are wrong because the outcome of this week's events is simply
unpredictable. Unpredictable means that no matter how well-informed you may be,
it is impossible to know what will happen next. Moments of turmoil make a
mockery of accumulated knowledge.

Routine
behavior, on the other hand, can be predicted. It is likely to occur tomorrow
the way it occurred yesterday, with adjustments for shifts over time. But
breaks from routine are a different beast altogether. The more that people feel
that normal rules of behavior no longer hold, the more they search around for
new rules, surveying their neighbors, collecting rumors, checking their text
messages in a frantic attempt to figure out what everyone else is planning to
do. Very few people are willing to be the only ones out in the street when the
security forces start to advance. If people expect millions of their
compatriots to demonstrate, many will want to help make history.

That's
what Iranians are trying to figure out this week. Where are we
going? asked
one protestor who had been beaten by the police with a baton.We don't
know how far this will go, another demonstrator told
a reporter. Anything is possible, said
another.

Some
protesters are giddy about the possibilities. We have removed the rubbish
that was injected into us by the regime, which turned people against one
another, one student e-mailed to friends outside of Iran. We are
entering a new day. Our heads are high and eyes focused far on the horizon.
Every single day the scope of this horizon expands, and in every single cell of
our bodies we feel that we are ascending and rising up towards greater
beauties.

Others
despair that the future looks bleak. Where are we today?! a young
oppositionist asked in distress on her blog as the protests began.
We don't know what to do. We don't know where to take refuge.
Organizers of the protests aim to calm these concerns with the promise of
safety in numbers. Do not fear, do not fear, we are all together,
demonstrators chanted in
Tehran.

Opponents
of regime change are also confounded by this week's events. Why isn't the
security apparatus getting involved? a pro-regime Web site complained
after the first large demonstration. The site then helpfully listed the names
of 42 opposition leaders in hopes that the security and military apparatuses
will respond with less leniency and greater severity of action toward this
situation.

Such
moments of mass confusion are unsettling and rare. They usually fade back into
routine. Occasionally, however, they create their own new routines, even new regimes,
as they did in 1978-1979. In later retelling of these episodes, especially by
experts, confusion is often downplayed, as though the outcomes might have been
known in advance. But that is not how Iranians are experiencing current events.
Their experience, and their response to their experience, will determine the
outcome.

So this week, while the political future of Iran seems undecided, let us take note
of the undecidedness, so that we won't forget it.