Iran seems to be a perpetual case of the good, the bad and the ugly. Ugly is the regime, an extremist sectarian system that has caused untold misery to its own people and others. Bad is the challenge of dealing with a potential Iranian nuclear weapon.
But there is good. The Iranian people increasingly are standing up to their oppressors. That doesn’t mean that an Iranian Spring is imminent or Iranians look to America as their liberator. However, as resistance to extremist rule grows, so does the possibility of internal regime change, the only kind likely to be permanent.
For instance, in recent weeks the world witnessed women across Iran protesting by climbing onto telecom boxes, taking off their headscarves and waving them about on sticks. These demonstrations began with one woman, who adopted this simple act – a peaceful symbol of dissent, dubbed “the quietest protest Iran has ever witnessed” by The New Yorker – on Revolution Street.