Mehdi Khalaji of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy has written a highly encouraging essay on the fragility of the mullahs' regime. In his second decade of leadership, Khamenei is living in fear of just such a velvet revolution. Whereas his cultural invasion fears envisioned liberal, democratic values potentially subverting the cultural foundations of the Islamic Revolution, his current worries center on the notion that the revolution's enemies could recruit people through nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) dedicated to humanitarian, child welfare, trade union, environmental, and antidrug issues. Accordingly, any social or cultural activity outside the regime's supervision is subject to suspicion, especially in the wake of the "color" revolutions that led to the replacement of leaders in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan -- countries close to Iran's borders.Several foreign scholars, including at least one affiliated with George Soros, have been recently arrested...(Read Full Post)