PETERED OUT

Anything happening in Iran? Not on U.S. news. But nothing much is happening anyway.

The Green movement has run into the obvious: peaceful demonstrations do not create political change where the regime has no regrets over repressing its people. The Shah was taken down only because the U.S., at least, held him back from bringing in tanks. Nobody's holding this regime back, and they've got no compunctions.

It will take guns to bring down the regime, and that is simply not going to happen. The protesters are, for the most part, not the sort of people it takes to push through violent revolution. And the motivation for revolution is the wrong sort - it's for freedom, not for power or for cash. The latter two are the kinds that result in armed insurrection, no matter what the rhetoric depicts.

This one is going to peter out. The regime already knows that, since it is releasing a lot of the people it swept up during the demonstrations. I don't interpret this to be a softening - I interpret it as understanding that the threat has dissipated. Of course, shooting them all would help to guarantee that there won't be another movement for twenty years. So the regime is showing a bit of hesitation - but I think that's a political calculation to disarm the opposition, which fed - for a little while - on repression.

My guess? Bye bye regime change.