It is now the wee hours of the morning in Tehran. Reports on Twitter suggest that the shouts of “Allaho Akbar” were louder tonight than they have been all week (here is a video supposedly from tonight). It seems that tomorrow will almost certainly bring bloodshed and a brutal crackdown should the opposition take to the streets, as they are expected to, in 12 hours or so.
I imagine fateful decisions are being made tonight. The hundreds of thousands of Iranians who took to the streets this week will be deciding if they should go out tomorrow in the face of Khamenei’s speech, and its unmistakable threat. The unit commanders and general staff of the army, the police and the IRGC will be deciding whether they will follow orders tomorrow, whether they can order their men into the streets to beat, maim and kill fellow Iranians. Clergy will decide, as they’ve been deciding all week, whether to stand with Khamenei and endorse his coup.
Khamenei has made his choice. Much rests on decisions made by the rest of Iran over what must be an unimaginably tense night.
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