On Iran, people ask, “why now?” But the thing to keep in mind is that it isn’t really “now”: Iranian society has never lain down. It’s just that their revolt gets drowned out by the news cycle: Ukraine, Gaza, Greenland, Sudan, you name it. The desire for freedom and justice doesn’t disappear when it’s crushed. It’s inextinguishable; it doesn’t run dry. Only its expression is, for a time, smothered by the worst violence. So yes, the question of timing is mysterious: you can try to provide the spark, but often it’s as simple as an empty plate.
So it’s no surprise to see tens of thousands of Iranians in the streets; it’s a great people, with both heart and mind. What’s astonishing isn’t what’s happening, but that the madmen who run this great country ever thought they could rule Iranians through authoritarianism and without legitimacy. What naïveté. What arrogance.
Now the question is how to prevent someone else from claiming credit for their certain victory by stepping in at the eleventh hour. Now the question is how to minimise the number of young people who will die for their ideas and for their dignity so that others may live free, and to honour the memory of those who made that sacrifice. Now the question is to think about what comes after, to offer a future.