Anyone who does not see that the regional balance of power has begun to shift in Irans direction is either willfully igornant or has anti-Iranian agenda. Does anyone doubt that Iran has gained more from the ouster of saddam than have the Americans?

It would be interesting to learn what the LEVERETTS think will happen when Khamenei is gone from the scene. I don't think there will be any major change in the Iranian government as long as he is around.

With all due respect: Just teaching in some university and having published a few books and articles doesn't necessary make one right on all subjects.

I am Iranian expatriate and have been following the news and events whole heartedly since the stolen and rigged election. I have contacts in Iran and read all the government and the opposition’s websites daily.

All I can say is that YOU ARE WRONG. VERY WRONG.

Your personal agenda against Mr. Obama shouldn't allow you to falsify news and publish ridicules stuff about a movement that is going against the world’s only theological government. For one thing Mr. Rafsanjani NEVER criticized Mousavi and Karroubi over their recent call to demonstrate. That is just FALSE.

The other people you've listed are the agents on Khamenei and it is expected of them to take such stance. Please note that there is a great division between the current people in power (So called conservatives). There has been a rift between Larijani, Ghalibaf, Motahari, and Ahmadinejad Do you really think that the Iranian parliament is independent? (God, you're so naive). Where have you seen bunch of MPs jump up and down on the floor of a parliament with the chants of DEATH TO someone???

Your article resonates writings in Iranian government publication of Kayhan than one by two American intellectuals. As the previous commentor said, it looks like you're "Iranian apologists and propagandists"
The green movement is alive and blankets a large majority of Iranians. Iran is no longer a country where the majority live in villages. The population concentration is in large cities. The majority of population is under the age 30 and educated. This government has lost the support of its people a long time ago. They have been a silent majority and now they are vocal. Ask yourself, why is it that this government won’t issues permit for opposition to come to streets? They know they lost the majority. You are the only one who believes that they still hold it. Ayatollahs Jenati and Mesbah Yazdi said it all, by stating that “this government gets its credibility from God and not the people. We are here because God wants here. It doesn’t matter what people want” … Does this sound like a government that has the backing of its people. Do you really think that Iranians want and support Islamic Republic?

I would highly recommend doing a little research before writing next time. And by the way, for your research stay away from Kayhan, Raja News, Pars News agency. They are not very reliable!!! They reported the number of Feb 14th participants between 100 to 500 people!!! All this DEATH TO Mousavi for 500 People!!! Ask yourself. And they did a poll recently, saying, 95% of all Iranians are happy with security forces …. Remember Saddam election where he got 99% of the vote!!!!

Thanks!

There seems to be some denial on the part of Kev and Tebrizian. The Leveretts have nailed it again. But America's getting out of the Middle East will be as good for Arabs and Persians (and Turks) as getting out of Latin America was for Latin Americans. It won't hurt Americans either.

I'll wager my meager life savings and Soros puts up let's say, a billion dollars. Come on George put your money where your mouth is.

If Egypt, Tunisia and/or other countries manage to launch somewhat democratic regimesrun by civilians, the Arab world may indeed stop collaborating with the US and Israel as much, but I highly doubt that they will align themselves with Iran, Hamas, etc. Unless you believe that the only issues that matter for the middle east is Israel, in which case, you should be framing your talking points as 'Israeli interests' instead of American interests.
On the long run, a successful democratic Arab nation will certainly be a negative development for Iran, because it will pose as an example of a genuine democracy that is independent from the US. Soon enough, more and more Iranian youth will start looking at them with envy, and not the other way around.
The argument in this article rests entirely on the assumption that these Arab nations will indeed be run by Islamist parties. If that's not the case, guess who will be held accountable for their failed analysis...

I fail to see or understand your statement that : " balance of influence and power across the Middle East had shifted significantly against the United States" .
The United State forces are now entrenched solidly in IRAQ - Kuwait - most of the Persian gulf states , Afghanistan, Georgia , Azerbaijan, Turkey ... etc.
Tell me how the influence of failed States like Iran and Syria has been enhanced since 2001 ?

I fail to see or understand your statement that : " balance of influence and power across the Middle East had shifted significantly against the United States" .
The United State forces are now entrenched solidly in IRAQ - Kuwait - most of the Persian gulf states , Afghanistan, Georgia , Azerbaijan, Turkey ... etc.
Tell me how the influence of failed States like Iran and Syria has been enhanced since 2001 ?

I fail to see or understand your statement that : " balance of influence and power across the Middle East had shifted significantly against the United States" .
The United State forces are now entrenched solidly in IRAQ - Kuwait - most of the Persian gulf states , Afghanistan, Georgia , Azerbaijan, Turkey ... etc.
Tell me how the influence of failed States like Iran and Syria has been enhanced since 2001 ?

This is an incredibly stupid article. Obviously, removing Iran's most deadly enemy (hardly an Obama decision) in invading Iraq was pretty dumb, but a regime that has to beat up it's own people isn't an existential threat to the US.

Interesting article until the end:

"dealing constructively with an increasingly influential Islamic Republic in Iran.... how to deal with legitimate, genuinely independent Islamist movements"

Islamists only understand jihad and the ultimate triumph of Islam in the world. Their dealing is a monologue and consists solely of submit to Islam or die.

Never underestimate the potential for animosity between Sunni and Shiite, Arab and Persian. Increased power does not necessarily translate into love.

Hmmm read this article and according to my point of view most of things which is written in here is not true .
for security concern i cant commend ...

Overall this is a reasonable piece, and the leveritts do have a pretty good track record, their views are also backed by stratfor and opinion polls.

Iran is definitely one of the worse goverments in the region, anyone who thinks otherwise should look at its listing on the reporters without borders index.

But it should also be remembered that relatively iran is a weak nation compared to the us and does not pose a real threat, both nations would be better off trying to bridge the gap between them which was created by overly hawkish fools in both nations.

This is a competent polemic on behalf of the regime, but --- if Foreign Policy is dedicated to analysis --- it does not belong here.

This is the familiar mix of the Leveretts There is a straw-man figure (George Soros). There is diatribe against the US Government --- not criticism of Washington's approach to the region, which I generally share with them --- but diatribe. There is sniping at others in the media.

And there is the repetition of claims about the internal situation in Iran which are unsupported (except for one paragraph on the rhetoric against opposition figures Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi —-- failing to mention the house arrests and latest wave of detentions).

There are numerous sources to consider the latest complexities in the political situation, including the regime's latest moves and the opposition marches. Despite the regime's efforts to cut off coverage, good LiveBlogs have been available at BBC Persian, Mardomak, Iran News Now, Dissected News, A Street Journalist, and EA WorldView. There is a wealth of discussion and debate on the opposition websites, from Rah-e-Sabz to Rooz Online. There are the semi-official sites inside Iran: Tabnak, ILNA, ISNA, Alef, Ayande, Khabar Online.

There is no evidence that the Leveretts have consulted any of these, drawing their superficial portrayal instead from a couple of persons supporting the regime line, notably Tehran University academic Seyed Mohammad Marandi.

I put this not to advocate a position on Iran's political situation, although I do have an active interest in the defense of rights and promotion of civil society. I do not put this to cheer-lead for the Green Movement: indeed, the debates amongst the opposition indicate that we are far beyond the "Green Movement" as it existed in 2009 and early 2010.

Instead, I would note both the opposition's optimism that it could get enough people on the streets on 14 and 20 February to be noticed, while at the same time looking at the regime's efforts to quash that opposition with steps such as the cut-off of Mousavi and Karroubi and the detention of hundreds in the last 10 days. And of course this is in a wider context, with debates between Parliament and President, with the current headline furor over Hashemi Rafsanjani's position on the Assembly of Experts, and with serious divisions amongst senior clerics, such as the recent dispute between supporters of Grand Ayatollah Vahid Khorasani and Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi.

While none of us can be objective, I think this deserves far more than soap-box declarations and the burning of straw men.

You're article is incomplete! Tell the readers what you would have the Obama administration do concerning the mid east. This is just another rant from the department of "I told you soers". The fact is that any flavor of U.S. administrations are helpless and toothless in influencing changes in the middle east short of military involvement. How these thug regimes treat their own people is not to be blamed on the U.S. Tell us...just what is "an islamist political order".

Leverett's realism filled article seems to struck the nerves of neocon types. Until very recently I would think Levertts' predictions are more likely to come true in a year, but the realists failed to predict the spreading of the revolutions in Arab land.

I hope that after a year we all get to revisit this article again and see if the Leveretts were right.

These two "scholars" declare that majority of the Persians do not mind living under totalitarian Islamism and actually enjoy murdering people inside their state entity and abroad. They may be right. We know that the Germans between 1933 and 1945 also enjoyed mass killing of everyone but the faithful Nazis and pure Aryans.

But it does not matter. The US should first and foremost resist Iranian aggression and defending freedom, democracy of Iraq, Israel and traditionalist non-aggressive countries like Jordain or even the Saudis outside of Iran. It is clear what we want - destruction of the genocidal regime regardless of what intoxicated and brainwashed Persian supremacists want.

I am confident and all the dynamics point only in one direction: Iran cannot stop its slippage into military aggression directed at the core at Israel but more likely starting as wars against the others. Exactly like Hitler war against Jews logically necessitated aggressions against Czechs, Poles, Russians, Serbs - also subhuman races. England, France and America did not want to "protect the Jews", but they did not want Germans to rule the world.

This time we need to "protect the Jews". It will minimize the damage to ourselves. This country should be ready to resist and eventually end the Iranian Nazism exactly as we crashed Germany and Italy in Europe. We need to forge a formal bilateral defense treaty with Israel and extend its framework to Iraq, then to Gulf principalities and Jordain.

Whoever they are, these Leveretts are absolutely right in one sense - Obama is a disaster. He just does not have skills and he is always late. They push him towards the Chamberlain policy. I want the Churchill's for us. It is important for all anti-fascist Americans to start working together against another Nazi incarnation.

The authors are way to inclined to comment on Iranian strength in the region. The assumption of Iran's influence is unfounded. Iran is economically and militarily weak. Their economy and military lags so far behind developed countries that to assume that Iran is becoming a major international player is laughable. Iran is holding on because of their resources (oil); they don't have high tech, manufacturing, or even advanced farming industries. Their military is outdated.

Just like Soviet Union of 1970 and 80s. It is has huge internal deficiencies, but because of its vocal opposition to the U.S. and its allies, it remains popular amongst some individuals. Iran will never attack Israel, U.S. or any other country for that matter. Doing so is a suicide for that regime and they know it.

We need to stop worrying about Iran. Without a boogie man U.S. and "Zionist Israel", regime will have nothing to feed its masses. And lets not underestimate that fact that Persians are not like Arabs. They have their own distinct culture and traditions like Turkey. Very many of them see Islam as something external, forced upon them. Not sure if the numbers are correct but only 14% of Persians thought Sharia law should be applied to political sphere (7% of Turks think so, and over 60% of Egyptians). Secular forces in Iranian society will prevail, just as they did in Turkey. It is just a matter of time.

This is an amusing anecdote. A year ago, someone at Iranian.com insisted we make a wager. Her bet was the Islamic Republic of Iran would be overthrown in a year's time. She was dead set on betting $100 and almost demanded I provide contact details to secure the wager.

I told her I didn't want to take her money. I tried to coax her into a "gentlemen" type bet but she insisted on the $100.

Well, it's been a year now. She would have lost the $100. (I'm glad I didn't take here money, as her emotional dejection is surely injury enough).

Soros is just grandstanding or ill informed. No dispassionate and careful observer would make such a bet.

This is another fine piece by the Leveretts. Good of FP to publish it. I only wish relevant officials currently serving in the USG would pay attention. These two have been consistently proven right nearly all of the time, where others have been consistently wrong.

The authors confuse the declining domestic influence of autocratic Arab regimes such as Saudi Arabia (and obviously Egypt, Libya etc.) with an increase in the influence of Iran. The only countries truly beginning to lean towards Iran are led by autocrats (such as Syria), the same kind of countries that are falling in mass throughout the Middle East. It is yet to be seen whether an Arab democracy or whatever else emerges in Egypt and Tunisia will turn to Iran.
Of course it is doubtful that they will. Arab countries will always look first towards a strong Arab leader. If no such strong Arab leader or country emerges from the current turmoil, then the Arabs are much more likely to follow Turkey which is charting an independent, mediating role in the Middle East, unlike the Iranians who are run by reactionaries some of whom may very well be criminally insane.

Which leads me to my second point, the authors make it sound as if Turkey (and other countries) are capitulating to Iran. The only reason Turkey is "drawing close to Iran" is because it increases their power. Currently, Turkey is exponentialy more powerful than Iran, both economically and militarily. Could it be that they, the only true Muslim democracy in the Middle East, are the real winners? Could it be that they are who the Egyptians and Bahrainis truely model themselves on? Of course not because the authors are Iranian apologists.

Iran is economically disjointed (despite new trade policies in Turkey). Politically it is far from a unitary actor (even amongst the new-age ruling conservatives). Iran lacks a professional and properly equiped military. Inequities between its regular military and the revolutionary guard would hurt it in any conflict and could become a source for internal instability. Turkey would beat Iran in a war. Israel would beat Iran in a war. Even the Egyptian military would beat Iran in a war. The US would definately beat Iran in a war, and so by extension our weakened allies in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere would also win any conflict with Iran (as the US would be drawn in). None of this looks likely to change anytime soon.

Flynt Leverett is spot on in his analysis when it come to so-called "green movement' which is all propaganda

(just read the Rolling Stone article "Another Runaway General: Army Deploys Psy-Ops on U.S. Senators)
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/another-runaway-general-army-deploys-psy-ops-on-u-s-senators-20110223?page=1

Which is just more evidence to the 100% accuracy of the May 15th Prophecy, read the May 15th Prophecy and you will see exactly what is about to happen next!

I would just say that in my opinion it was a brilliant and a very accurate analysis. There was hardly any room for any disagreement. It is indeed pleasure to read such insightful and precisely analysed articles.

Shams Zaman - Pakistan

If today new governments of the Egypt come up from the American Governments favorite list, still is a big u-turn and rollback to about 40 years ago in the Middle East and US probably attacks to Libya's Muammar al-Qaddafi regime, because needs strong base in that region. Mad Dog Qaddafi is making Human rights excuse to occupy his country by NATO and Pentagon. He is rolling-back his country to 40 years ago how Saddam did in Iraq and "In the name of democracy" Bootocracy (Democracy in boot) occupied their civilization. Last year's green movement supported by the US officials in Iran ignited the region. The White House MUST know a basic rule of thumb: "If you spit up side then run away other wise it will back on your face."

With respect to the Leveretts’ thesis (barring the “Obama is Bad” kneejerk), two alternatives present themselves.

Iranian influence may increase. Like reactionaries everywhere, the mullahs will make sure that anyone with a brain will be barred from power. And, like Republicans who held power in the USA, they will thereby fall flat on their face. Heightened influence will merely give them license to shoot themselves in the foot; that’s what they do best.

Otherwise, Iranian influence will be thinned by the perpetual musical chairs of Turkish, Iranian, Sunni and Shia Arab power groups, and the viral shift of their mercenary satellites that permits no outside analysis more than a year or two’s relevance and accuracy, and that may validate almost any schmo’s prediction, if only for a year or two.

Meanwhile, the USA, the EU and China will sit on the sidelines, fishing for puppets to manipulate – that audience of deep pockets and massed firepower being the only element of this game that has changed for the last thousand years. Big. Deal.

The only thing the populations of these four primary players hate worse than their own government and each other, is Israel. By sheer numbers, by sheer attrition, and with the passage of merciless time, Israel as currently established is doomed. So is U.S. Mid East policy, as long as ankle-chained to that big fat liability. Improvise, adapt and evolve; or die the slow death of hubris, magical thinking and dull brains.

Speaking of which, I am struck by the intellectual sterility revealed in this article and its appended comments. Are we doomed to choose between the simple-mindedness of Neocons or that of “Obama is Bad” reactionaries, with nothing more sophisticated on offer? Is that bathos the sum total of creativity and savvy within and without the concrete-lined Beltway?

The interview of George Soros with Farid Zakaria was thought provoking, watch it here

http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/podcasts/fareedzakaria/site/2011/02/20/gps.podcast.02.20.cnn.html

I have been observing Soros for many years. He is one of interesting (outstanding) billionaire characters of our time. He is known to engross $27b and as the text of the above video showed he has spent $7b of his money on promotion of democracy !(?). $7b is indeed a huge sum of money. ( replacing $1 with one second, $7b is equivalent of 221 years. In other words if in year 1790 a hypothetical robot had started counting non-stop (24/7) $1 a second, just by now it would’ve finished counting) (or if a typical 20 year old bank employee’s job is only counting $10 bills, a bill a second, by the time he had counted all $7b he would’ve been over 100 years old !)

When I think of Soros I remember this: In the 1970's an American general was kidnaped by Italian Marxist-Leninist Red Brigades Group. A committee was set up by Americans to rescue the general. The head of the committee believed “you can BUY everyone even those who are known to be honest since he believed the integrity of EVERYONE is for sale, only the price differs from person to person”. He offered one million dollars for information resulting in general’s freedom. Soon after the offer was publicized one of the communists of the Brigade surfaced, arranged the exchange of the money and revealed the location of hideout. The general was successfully liberated!

Of course there are a very small fraction of the population who are not for sale regardless of the enormity of the sum, but I believe due to the way the human beings have evolved and especially in this age of moronic materialism the majority of people will sell their soul for the enchanted big ‘greens’. The kind of money that enables them to buy big houses, expensive cars, lots of sex, lots of power or fun and so on.

Soros is potentially a dangerous man. Most probably he (and others like him) have been busy BUYing people in critical positions all around the world. Imagine if the average price for a parliamentarian, or a minister in Europe and US is say TWO MILLION dollars, then Soros is single handedly capable of buying all the of American and European government ministers, elected parliamentarians, senators and even supreme court judges. Such a grand purchase could have cost him only a fraction of his wealth.

With such an colossal power he is also, if he wants to, capable of destroying whoever refuses his offers or dares to stand on his way.

In extrapolating this, imagine how many more hard-core super wealthy Capitalists or Zionists are out there who are ardently opinionated and are willing to spend many millions to further their causes. For some of these folks 10 million is becoming like a small change (especially considering the fact that the wealth of the super rich is ‘exponentially’ ever-increasing).

What an amazing troubling phenomenon. After knowing the above think of how appalling the world is becoming (or already has become).

Ample portrayal of the political George Soros requires many pages of explanation.Here I just mention a few relevant points:

1- I remember in 1990s the Prime Minister of Malaysia badly insulted Israel. Sometimes later the economy of many Asian countries including Malaysia encountered an acute crisis that resulted in the (severe?) devaluation of the currency of those countries. At the time many accused George Soros who (single handedly?) had concocted the crisis. I remember reading on how in this world a determined rich and powerful man can embark havoc on 100s of millions. A rich man who, in the process of enacting the plot and teaching a lesson to top political authorities, had collectively punished tens of millions of the Asian poor. I have to say I do not have any data to vindicate that allegation. I just reflect on one of my unforgettable recollections involving Soros

2- He is a monumental example of arrogance and self-righteousness that is plaguing many rich and powerful people who possess analytical minds for making fortunes. Those whose success in becoming super rich alters the circuitry of their brains making them believe they themselves are super thus they can act as god creating conditions for the ‘betterment’ of the world!. I think Soros and other individuals who fit the above description are incapable of understanding the complexity of the dynamism that drives the human evolution.

Soros is well known to be the orchestrator of the Color Revolutions. I am thinking did he envisage, for example, the Georgian Revolution would empower the Israelis digging their foothold there deeper, something which in the long run will become detrimental to well-being of the Georgian people? Does he care about such dreadful outcome or that is what he wants?

Can he see the similarity of parts of his action and those of tyrants like Hitler? Hitler also wanted to use his immense power to better the world for his beloved Germans!. In the beginning he apparently succeeded but did Hitler had the vision to see far horizons? Didn’t he fail because the vectors of the forces of his actions were in opposite direction to the complicated evolutionary forces that were at work at the time? Does Soros know any ‘action’ causing any type of pain to ‘other’ tribes has a proportional ‘blowback’ since the physical law of ‘for any action there is a reaction’ also applies to human societies?

Has he ever thought why in the past primitive wars, when the majority of males were killed in battles, only in couple of generations the excessive male birth had compensated for that loss?

Can Soros see his artificial and superficial changes in any human society have only temporary effects since the forces for forward human evolution are immensely more powerful and more complex in such a way, when viewed in long terms of time no single human being is capable of permanently altering the course of those evolutions..

3- From his passion for staging pro-west (pro-Israel?) revolutions I guess he probably believes, overall, the expansion of democracies is helpful to Israel simply because European and North American democracies are all the principal backers of Israel. If so or if he intends to keep his newly created democracies under control then he must be delusional. No one doubts if all of Middle Eastern regimes become truly civil democracies then all of them will unite in earnest to combat the only arrogant apartheid state in the world which has ruthlessly victimized and humiliated them for many long decades..

4- I am w sure Soros’ general world view is (not surprisingly) skewed in other ways. Just in this video and as mentioned in this enlightening article he claims he’ll bet the Iranian regime will collapse within a year. This clearly indicates his political illiteracy and inability to analyze the events intelligently.. He probably sees IRI as a simple inflexible entity which is not as most probably he doesn’t know the present day Iran is NOT the same as it was just a decade ago. He also can’t properly evaluate how the chemistry of the brains of Iranians changed during the Iran-Iraq war. I think if the lower class masses keep supporting the regime and more importantly if Israel and US continue to threaten Iran with destructions (something Iranian know how barbaric that can be), then IRI could definitely last for many many years or even decades despite the fact that the regime is a theocratic pseudo-democracy and some of the laws of the country are based on primitive ancient or on medieval rules.

There are many other stories about George Soros like his organization’s attempt to corrupt liberal or antiwar groups, he and Bill Moyers etc. I only recommend reading his book, interviews or writings. Then you might find out why he is overall a dangerous character.

On the above video:

When Soros talks about recent protests in Iran, Zakaria asks him “..could WE do something to further these trends?..” Someone should tell Zakaria, “seems those 6 figure cheques are tasting sweet and (subconsciously?) are driving you to lick the bottom of your powerful guests with pleasure, telling them stuff they enjoy to hear.... hey buddy...have you forgotten your roots.. ..it is only up to Iranians to plan their destinies and alter the trends....not to Kissnger or Soros....if you had any decency you should have shown this to Sir George the results of western Polls on Iran or the poll of the Brookings Institute.

There is so much more in that video, watch it....don’t miss the last part where Majd and Sadjadpour present their differing views on Iran. You might also understand why Sadjadpour who has in the past pumped so many consequentially false information on Iran to US media is still invited to TV shows.

Okay, so I see a lot of dumb comments either pro or against the Leveretts here, many of them from people who know nothing about the ME, and even more from the IRI's cyber brigade (really, Ali in Tehran? you're telling me that a guy with a meager income in Tehran is commenting on foreignpolicy.com? lol).

I've been to Iran recently and here's what I can tell you: the sanctions ARE working. Things are getting more scarce. Hospitals are having a tough time getting equipment, and Iran's joke of a national airline is more or less grounded (but the regime's cronies get to run their own mini-airlines, mostly thanks to decommissioned Russian Topolov planes). The Green movement has lost much of its steam, but NOT its power in public consciousness. If anything, people are far better educated right now than before, thanks to BBC Persian's great programming. And surprisingly enough, VOA has a huge following as well. On the other hand, very few people watch state TV for political news.

Anybody who tells you the regime is in a position of strength needs their head examined. Iranians aren't dumb. State TV can spin the movements in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Bahrain, Morocco, and so on as being about Muslims wanting more Islam in their government, but nobody believes that and I believe in a few months time when Egypt and Iran are as bitter enemies as before the truth will become even more apparent.

One more thing: almost nobody outside of Iran has been reporting on Ahmadinejad's discontinuing of all state subsidies. The price of bread has gone up ten-fold, and gasoline rationing will begin in earnest in a few weeks. So far, there hasn't been too much public rioting over this, thanks to some vouchers the government handed out to the very poor and some loopholes that allow you to get more gasoline than the rations will give you. But, once the new prices are actually enforced, we'll see the truth to the lie that the Leverett's and Ahmadi's other friends in the Western media are pushing, that Ahmadi somehow works for the Iranian poor and they love him. They are the ones who will suffer from these high prices, not the rich kids of north Tehran. And judging by my last visit, people know they're getting screwed.

Anyway, I don't know what side I come down on regarding Mr. Soros' bet. I don't think revolutions can be predicted. Three months ago, nobody would have thought that a bunch of government thugs pushing around a fruit vendor would lead to him setting himself on fire and inspiring people in a dozen neighbouring countries to rise up and protest against their governments, not to mention the toppling of the 30+ year dictator in his own country. History works in mysterious ways.

The revolution is dead. Long live the revolution.

Just in this video and as mentioned in this enlightening article he claims he’ll bet the Iranian regime will collapse within a year. This clearly indicates his political illiteracy and inability to analyze the events intelligently.. He probably bwin sees IRI as a simple inflexible entity which is not as most probably he doesn’t know the present day Iran is NOT the same as it was just a decade ago. He also can’t properly evaluate how the chemistry of the brains of Iranians changed during the Iran-Iraq war. I think if the lower class masses keep supporting the regime and more importantly if Israel and US continue to threaten Iran with destructions (something Iranian know how barbaric that can be), then IRI could definitely last for many many years or even decades despite the fact that the regime is a theocratic pseudo-democracy.
The price of bread has gone up ten-fold, and gasoline rationing will begin in earnest in a few weeks. So far, there hasn't been too much public rioting over this,stan james thanks to some vouchers the government handed out to the very poor and some loopholes that allow you to get more gasoline than the rations will give you. But, once the new prices are actually enforced, we'll see the truth to the lie that the Leverett's and Ahmadi's other friends in the Western media are pushing, that Ahmadi somehow works for the Iranian poor and they love him. They are the ones who will suffer from these high prices, not the rich kids of north Tehran. And judging by my last visit, people know they're getting screwed.
I believe due to the way the human beings have evolved and especially in this age of moronic materialism the majority of people will sell their soul for the enchanted big ‘greens’. The kind of money that enables them to buy big houses, expensive cars, lots of sex, lots of power or fun