I think they don't believe they can rely on the army to shoot Iranians on command.

From Tweets quoted by Andrew Sullivan:

Rumors say 3 Basij captured and being held in basements of homes. They only speak Arabic.

Seems like the Iranian government really is running out of locals. But will their supply of Arabs outlast the protesters' supply of Iranians? It probably will but I think the regime can forget about appearing to represent the Iranian people or even any form of Iran now.

In spectacular case of denail, Sup Ldr blames US, Israel for protests and Neda killing. not sure who believes him in Iran

Nobody in Iran will believe this. It's for external consumption.

I also think that the recent many terror attacks in Iraq are a part of this. The Iranian regime has more support among Arabs than even among Iranian extremists.

Doesn't seem very wise of them to be playing to the cameras while their own house burns down around them.

Things have quieted down a bit due to government-sponsored violence.

Arab militiamen have the protests "under control".

I don't expect a special crisis UN meeting to discuss the "disproportionate violence", since after intensive research it turned out that the victims were not Arab terrorists and the Iranian government isn't Jewish.

But the Iranian government have had to give up their pretence of representing the Iranian people. Everybody now knows that they represent only themselves. And again, as in 1979, we will have to ask ourselves why on earth we, the west, even recognise that government.

It's too bad that Obama is the President. He still wants to talk to them. About what??? Whether they will reconsider their nuclear weapons program now that they have local Iranians to murder?

You know, before I even laid eyes on this thread I knew the situation was bad, but I hadn't realized that it was REALLY bad. And now I've gone on to follow threads like this (warning: VERY disturbing images in there)... and I'm thoroughly shaken. I have no idea how accurate that all is, but I can't help but feel... chilled, looking at that stuff. My god, those bastards are brutal sons of bitches.

I hope the Iranians aren't going to let these animals get away with this.

It is accurate.

The unconfirmed rumours I heard are worse.

Note that the Iranian on that thread also notes Ahmadinejad's party affiliation as "ape", like I did.

Note this occurence of the term: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/11/ahmadinejad-toy-monkey

Ok, here is some news.

If you are into confirmed facts, treat this as made up by me. I obviously cannot give sources.

You might have heard unconfirmed reports about former Iranian president Ayatollah Rafsanjani trying to muster support among the "Assembly of Experts" (the Iranian upper house, a parliament of self-proclaimed clerics) to remove the "Supreme Leader" Khameini in Qom, the religious capital of Iran. This has been going on for weeks.

http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/iranincrisis/2009/06/200962355233501334.html

Rafsanjani is absolutely not a reformer and appears more as an Iranian Goering. Hoping for him to do something useful is probably not a good idea. But this begs the question why he isn't doing anything when it is clear that Khamaini and his allies in the revolutionary guard have been taking over the state ever since the 90s and certainly since 2005. The revolutionary guard have been taking over government agencies and private businesses for years and are now effectively in control of everything.

Election fraud is certainly not in the interest of the regime. But it is in the interest of the "winner" of the "elections" and his allies. Goering/Rafsanjani would certainly try to strike back. So why all the talk and no action?

Turns out the reason Rafsanjani doesn't do anything is because he can't. The entire "Assembly of Experts" can't do anything. They have no factual power. Legally, according to the Iranian "constitution", the assembly has the power to remove the "Supreme Leader" from office. But for some time now the assembly didn't have the means to do so.

The Iranian army is traditionally neutral. And the revolutionary guards are on Ahmadinejad's (and hence Khameini's) side, as are the Basij militia (who really only care about following whomever is willing to let them be as violent as they wish). Ahmadinejad's padnering to Arab extremists has also resulted in massive support for his "cause" among Arab terrorist groups like Hizbullah and Hamas, which are used against protesters in Iran now.

So now it's down to protesters vs Khameini. The "Assembly of Experts" are now out of it. They will come back, trying to preserve the regime, once the protesters have somehow beaten the guards.

Kazakhstan stands firm on the west's and Israel's side.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1246296535221&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

"Once the protesters have somehow beaten the guards"? That's awful optimistic. I wish the best for the Iranian people, but knowing the kind of brutality they're up against and the kind of disruption the regime is targeting at them... it almost seems like too much to hope for. Sure, they pulled it off 30 years, but I have trouble seeing that happening without the military stepping in to assist.

I don't know. I'm still pretty shaken from those pictures and videos. I don't think I've been this unsettled since I read "Shake Hands With the Devil"... never did manage to finish the book.

It's tough to be optimistic now that I hear the protests have stopped, the streets are flooded with militia, and no doubt hasty and illegitimate trials are being arranged for the arrested protesters. It all seems to be losing momentum, not gaining it.

I wasn't optimistic, just the opposite. The protesters couldn't get the help from the assembly that everyone (except them) was waiting for.

The strikes might get the regime. The protests obviously wouldn't. The protests just allowed the protesters to show each other (and the world) how many they are.

Protests worked against the Shah because he at some point decided not to shoot at his own people. We cannot expect such behaviour from the likes of Khameini.

Protests never worked as a revolution except where the regime was moral enough to give in. It worked in British India and even East-Germany. But it wouldn't have worked in Nazi Germany and most likely won't work in Iran either.

I've heard almost nothing out of Iran in the last few days. Is that because I'm missing it, or is there actually nothing to report now?

Because the administration wants to deal with the current Iranian leadership, and the majority of the media supports the administration, they decided to let the protester whither away, as a non-issue. If they looked to this administration for support or encouragement, they were doomed from the start. The first few hours were critical, and Obama's silence spoke volumes.

Cutting communications during civil unrest is part of dictator 101 class. 

That's pretty much it.

The protests are non-violent and the regime ignores them. They only hope is exposure and that's not going to happen any more.

Non-violent protests only work against moral (or very weak and somewhat moral) governments.

Rafsanjani has publicy announced his belief that the vote was rigged and his support for Mousavi:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iran-security7-2009jul07,0,2303204.story

A day after commanders of the Revolutionary Guard warned there was no middle ground in the dispute over the reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the political party of one of Iran's most powerful clerics Monday defiantly issued a statement dismissing the vote.

The statement by the Kargozaran party all but cleared away weeks of ambiguity about the stance of the cleric, Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

Note that some regimes always refer to themselves as "the revolution", despite having been in power for 30 years:

"Because the Revolutionary Guard was assigned the task of controlling the situation, [it] took the initiative to quell a spiraling unrest," Maj. Gen. Mohammed Ali Jafari, commander of the elite military branch, said at the news conference. "This event pushed us into a new phase of the revolution and political struggles, and we have to understand all its dimensions."

It's one of of being both progressive and conservative.

This guy gets it:

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/heres-the-real-message-behind-irans-disputed-election-20090706-daej.html

What we have witnessed in Iran in recent weeks is a military coup conducted through the ballot boxes. Policymakers and analysts have been talking for a long time about the possibilities and prospects of a change of regime in Iran. Well, I have news for everybody — change of regime in Iran has taken place.

The re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for a second term as Iran's President represents the emergence of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corp as a military dictatorship — pushing aside the clerics and mullahs. It's a new Iran in many ways. It's an Iran in which the Supreme Leader, despite what you will read in most of the Western press, is not the real victor in the election. He manipulated the elections in such a way as to have Ahmadinejad re-elected. Now, however, the Supreme Leader works for Ahmadinejad, rather than the other way around.

He is wrong in the last sentence. Khameini does not work for Ahmadinejad. Ahmadinejad is indeed a loyal follower of the fanatic "Supreme Leader". Islam in Iran has been moving into an extremist direction for many decades before and after the revolution. But Khameini's simple aggressive anti-Semitic "Islam" is a step beyond the more complicated subtle anti-Semitic "Islam" of Khomeini.

The "problem" first the revolution's Islam was that without Khomeini there was nothing that would make it really evil - the originally designated heir of Khomeini, Grand Ayatollah Montizeri was and is a decent, honest and good man - but Khameini's version of Khomeini's dream if worse.

And the revolutionary guard, a bunch of fascists who like simply ideologies, especially when they demonise Jews and promise them Iranian dominion over the Arabs, are now giving Khameini, the "Supreme Leader" the fascist state he needs for his religious fanaticism.