When the rallying cry on the streets of Tehran turned from “Death to America!” to the stranger-sounding “Death to the Dictator!” there was a great temptation to conclude that the days of the mullahs were numbered. Maybe they are and maybe not; as President Obama said on Tuesday, “we don’t know yet how this thing is going to play out.” But inside Mr. Obama’s National Security Council, and around the world, versions of the same question were being asked: Will the resort to raw repression work? Or will it eventually backfire, only widening the huge political breach that the election laid bare?
