June 14, 2009 05:59 AM UTC

Open post Iran: Wenceslas Square or Tiananmen

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• by: DavidThi808

(Not about Colorado, but sometimes the big news isn’t we guess – promoted by Colorado Pols)

The more I read about this, the more it appears that Iran is at a tipping point. Up to now Iran had a limited democracy. But that democracy did support robust discussion and the ability to select the representatives up to a certain level (under strong constraints).

If the vote was actually stolen now becomes almost irrelevant, because neither side will believe the opposite regardless of what comes out. Both sides are locked in to their view of reality.

So now the people and government of Iran needs to make a decision. Whether or not they want to, the time has arrived. And in 6 months we will see them as a clear dictatorship or they will be a true democracy.

And the means by which they reach either end result can be relatively smooth (think Poland) or bloody & violent. And either means can reach either end.

I have this up as an open post for comments and so will limit my diary part to this and suggest this link at TPM as a great resource.

Update: Latest good source I found HuffPo (great set of pictures on the HuffPo home page too).

More good sources:

DailyKOS live blog mothership

Andrew Sullivan

Tehran Bureau

NY Times