PANIC IN TEHRAN – AT 7:53 A.M. ET:  There are signs the regime in Tehran is starting to panic, aware that both its legitimacy and its longevity are being seriously challenged.  From Martin Fletcher at the Times of London, via the superb Planet Iran website:

Iran’s panicking regime is once again seeking to suppress the Green Movement by decapitating it.
Just as it did after June’s hotly-disputed presidential election, it is arresting high-profile reformists, academics and journalists who support the opposition...

...The tactic will prove as futile now as it did in June. Decapitation will not work because the opposition is a bottom-up movement run not by Mr Mousavi or Mehdi Karroubi, its nominal leaders, but by its grassroots members. It is a massive campaign of civil disobedience.

The response of the president of the United States has been some gosh-darned nice words about the right to protest.

“Ahmadinejad, Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guards still don’t get it,” said one Iranian academic. “The Green Movement is a decentralised popular front run by local cells and local leaderships across the country. The main opposition figures do not control it. They are spiritual leaders, but do not provide any direction in regard to demonstrations or slogans.”

And...

One activist said: “Do Khamenei, Ahmadinejad and the elite of the Revolutionary Guards really think that I, or anyone else, after being beaten by the police, witnessing the murder of Iranians on the streets, hearing stories of rape and murder in the prisons, and knowing of electoral cheating, will ever remain passive and quiet? None of us will ever accept the rule of Ahmadinejad and Khamenei after what they have done.”

Tehran's police chief today promised increased brutality toward the demonstrators.  That is likely to make matters worse for the regime.

The pot is boiling.  An informed source told me that March may well see the tipping point. 

We're making a list and checking it twice, and noting the silence of "human rights organizations," especially those who've been obsessed with Guantanamo. 

And, by the way, we haven't heard a word from the secretary of state. 

We're following this.  Iran may well be the biggest foreign story of 2010.

December 30,  2009