Iran.

Last night, I plonked down this much . . .

Some tweets snagged from the front of Andrew Sullivan's blog:

Hospitals around Tehran are surrounded by security forces who refuse to let those with injuries pass, humanity at its worst

Friend: 17 y/o killed infront of me couldn't get to him in time guards beating us up went to hospital but he stopped moving

I've spent an hour trying to wrench something detached and cerebral from that, and I can't. I just can't. This is like watching a mugging.

. . . and then blogger went down for maintenance.

The mood today, for all the blood that's been shed, is different. Rafsanjani and the Guardian Council may well be going after Khamenei himself, the military has maintained its "neutrality," and Ahmadinejad isn't strutting around Tehran throwing himself parties; the violence and the loss of life are appalling, but the Iranian people are holding onto their dignity - and that's nothing less than amazing.

What worries me about the Green Revolution - or, rather, a potential weakness I haven't seen much addressed - is that, ironically enough, I don't see a Ruhollah Khomeini. Not in terms of the man's politics - one was quite enough! - but in that the movement doesn't seem to have a strategist with obvious goals, and with a clear and easily articulated view of Iranian society's next stage. Moussavi, from what I've been able to piece together, has fairly limited ambitions - possibly as modest as just ensuring a new round of elections - and it's not at all apparent to me that that's what the bulk of the crowds in the streets want. [To be clear, I'm not saying they yearn for a perfect reproduction of American democracy, but even arriving at an Islamic Republic cleansed of parasitical basijis and an unresponsive clerical class would take more than just dropping Ahmadinejad down a couple of pegs.] My concern, basically, is . . . well, a movement that self-organizes over Twitter is in a lot of ways cleaner and stronger and more vibrant than one manipulated from on high, but it has a very, very complicated job when it comes to arriving at an end-game (even when it's winning!). Even if the people in the streets hang on in the face of terrifying force, where do they go from here?

That said, I'm curious about Rafsanjani's master plan; the man may be corrupt, but I gather he has a reputation as a big thinker.

That said, I'm still painfully cognizant of Kristof's axiom: when it comes down to might versus right, the smart money's on the bad guys.

But, man, I hope the Iranians can pull it off.