The Demonstrations in Iran

The live "twitter" feed, to the left of the picture, has just been added because it is difficult to gauge the exact nature and extent of the drama being played out in Iran at the moment. This morning on 'ZDF' one German journalist did say that, while there might have been some irregularities with the election result, there is no way that any fraud committed in Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's favour was so extensive that Mir-Hossein Mousavi is the real winner. We just cannot know at the moment!
Nevertheless, what we do have in Iran is a society that is seriously divided and what we do have is a young educated urban middle class taking to the streets in an effort to force that change. Unfortunately, while we have successful models to look at where positive change has come about in this manner, the West would do well not to encourage the demonstrations that are taking place. There is no evidence to suggest that any real show of strength will end in anything other than young Iranians experiencing a "Tiananmen Square" of their own, rather than achieving the hope for changed. My advice to those Iranians on the street today would be, don't let the West give you council, go home, regroup, organise and work for real change. Now is not the time to mount the barricades.
The picture shows the Iranian police tackling demonstrators