The canaries in Iran's cages
The Globe and Mail / Howard Adelman
12-Jan-2010


The few “moderates” left in the system have all been purged. Instead of a stick in one hand and an olive branch in the other, the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and his coterie of like-minded extremist ideologues project mistrust and defiance. Ali Ansari, director of the Institute for Iranian Studies at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, expected the opposition within Iran to buckle under the heavy repression that has imprisoned several thousand and killed several hundred. But dissent has increased. Unfortunately, not nearly as much as the rate the regime has ratcheted up the force used by the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij militia.


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