by Roger Cohen Op Ed Columnist NY Times Dec 17, 2009
The main difference between Moscow 1989 and Tehran 2009 is that the Islamic Republic is still ready to open fire. The main similarities are obvious: tired ideologies; regimes and societies marching in opposite directions; and spreading dissent both within the power apparatus and among the opposition.
Yes, the Islamic Republic has not arrived at a Gorbachevian renunciation of force. It is not yet open to compromise, despite calls for moderation from prominent clerics and now, it seems, from some senior army officers. It is still, in the words of the opposition leader Mir Hussein Moussavi, sending its Revolutionary Guards and Basiji militia to chase “shadows in the street.”
I don’t know how long this situation can endure. Anyone who claims to be able to tell the Iranian future is lying. But it seems clear that the “political clock” has now outpaced the “nuclear clock.”
Iran has been messing around with a nuclear program for some four decades. Pakistan went from zero to a bomb in about a quarter that time. Setting aside the still debatable objective of this Iranian endeavor (nuclear ambiguity or an actual device?), it’s not in the midst of the current political turmoil that Tehran is going to break out of its back-and-forth tinkering. Inertia is always strong in Iran ’s many-headed system. Right now it’s stronger than ever — hence the risible, blustery confusion ov… >>>
