"The Regime Is Frightened"

Via Marty, Michael Ledeen's assessment of the situation in Iran:

The regime is frightened.  The supreme leader and his acolytes (Ahmadinejad is less and less visible.  Somebody should tell Diane Sawyer) are groping for a way to survive.  They seem not to realize that they died before Montazeri, and that nobody cares to mourn them. And so they stagger about, and find the worst possible gesture.  As the indispensable Banafsheh tells us:

On Monday evening Saeed Montazeri announced that the Montazeri family was forced to cancel the post-funeral sacrament as the Islamic regime’s forces had invaded the A’zam mosque where the observance was to be held. Saeed Montazeri also added that the Montazeri residence has now been surrounded by various revolutionary guards, members of the Basij, intelligence agents, members of special force, etc.

It is reminiscent of Gorbachev at his most inept, finding a way to be mean enough to enrage the people, but not tough enough to assert his power, thereby provoking that most dangerous of all mass reactions:  contempt for his person and his rule.