What is the current situation on the ground in Iran?
I’d first of all say that we should truly appreciate the magnitude of this moment. Those who argue this is only a disagreement between revolutionary elites are patently wrong. The mayor of Tehran, Mohammed Bagher Ghalibaf, himself a former senior Revolutionary Guard commander, claimed that over three million people demonstrated in Tehran. I am not at all predicting a revolution, and in fact people are not even using the word ‘engheleb’ i.e. revolution, but to give you an idea, in 1978 it took six months before a million people took to the streets, this time it took place in a matter of days. And the images and many reports showed how the demonstrations represented an incredibly diverse socio-economic swath of Iranian society, with women often being at the forefront. The scale of the demonstrations has subsided for now, but there’s no indication that people’s sense of injustice or rage has subsided. From what I hear from people in Tehran, the nightly protest chants of ‘Allahu Akbar’ are
