LET’S SUPPOSE THE REGIME FORBIDS PUBLIC MOURNING:
People’s grief is so deep and genuine, millions will defy Khamenei. In this case it will be a far angrier crowd unlikely to tolerate his club wielders. Because such a command won’t deter anyone (people are too angry), it’s effect will be to demonstrate both the regime’s lack of legitimacy and its increasing weakness.
Can Khamenei depend on increasingly demoralized security forces to wield its clubs one more time–especially if the crowds are than big? Even if they do it will undermine morale further. Surely many Basilj know that Montezeri–not Khamenei–was originally intended as Khoumeini’s successor and how much less troubled Iran might be today had that happened.
LET’S SUPPOSE THE REGIME ALLOWS PUBLIC MOURNING:
The crowds may well be as big bigger than those right after the stolen election. I suspect they may be as massive as those who turned out to mourn Khoumeini. Then as now, the mourning could go on for days. It will be just as deep and heaertfelt. Considering the regime’s attacks on Montezeri since his death, that is a slap in the face for Khamenei since it demonstrates his own popularity and that of the regime he created. How will such numbers be explained away?
BY CONTRAST, WHO WILL MOURN WHEN KHAMENEI DIES?
State organs will praise Iran’s Ceacescu but I doubt even 100 GENUINE mourners will show up. That excludes those paid to attend, Basilj types bussed in under orders or the tiny and privliged in-crowd grieving the loss of a meal ticket.
Party time? For every genuine mourner, I suspect there will be 100 people celebrating.
