On the one hand, the general feeling, I think, inside the country and among dissidents outside the country, is that a great opportunity was missed in 2009, and part of the reason that happened may have to do with the reluctance and the ambiguity of the Green Movement's leader to challenge the regime in such a radical fashion as to question its own legitimacy and very existence.
When millions of people were in the street protesting the elections in the weeks following the June 12 electoral round, the Green Movement's leader basically told the people to go home. That was probably a great mistake, because no regime would be able to open fire and crush the will of an organized protest of millions of people in the street.
Your colleague mentioned Syria before. We should compare the Syrian spring or the Syrian revolt with the Iranian one to see how, even in the face of terrible adversities, a determined people can continue to sustain a revolt against a brutal regime if the will for change among its leaders is there.
So that would be the first problem.
However, on the upside of things, if you observe the situation inside the country today—and I don't mean to sound like a Marxist by saying this—the country is ripe for revolution in the sense that you have a number of dramatic economic circumstances that will only be made worse by sanctions in months to come, that will only increase the discontent among the population even within those sectors of the population that perhaps were traditionally more committed to the regime. The targeting of the IRGC is extremely important in this sense, because the IRGC, while perhaps the most ideologically committed element of the regime, is a significant factor for its own stability and very highly dependent on revenue from economic activities. It is a very significant organization, a big one, one that plays a role in the Iranian economy akin to the one played by the Egyptian army. If you take the example of what happened in Egypt under the combined stress of economic difficulties and popular uprising, you can see how it is possible to foresee a situation where inside the regime a significant part of the power structure may consider defecting and changing sides and changing course.
In addition to that, you have unrest within the ethnic minorities, you have wildcat strikes going on in critical government factories and infrastructure, and you have the mounting repression, which to me is a sign that the regime is afraid of losing control and recognizes the extensive nature of dissent in the country.
So the question is whether--