It is already five weeks since the presidential elections on 12 June 2009 in Iran, whose official results and handling by the authorities provoked an immediate and nationwide outbreak of popular demonstrations. It may appear that the authoritarian ruling clique headed by Iran's spiritual (Ayatollah Khamenehi) and political (Mahmud Ahmadi-nejad) leader has in this period been able to contain and push back the challenge to its power. The deployment of police, basij militias and pasdaran (Revolutionary Guards) has crushed the mass street protests; at least dozens and perhaps hundreds of the leaders and top advisers of the reformist presidential candidates have been arrested; and a climate of fear has been imposed. The most visible manifestations of the hugely impressive popular movement of the "Persian spring"--whose eruption took almost all observers by surprise, and which quickly won an amazing breadth of support across Iran's social groups and regions--seem to have been closed down as suddenly as it burst into the open.
