Khamenei just threw the gloves off in a way that everyone living in Iran understands, a thinly veiled threat of murder.
He speaks for the true power base there and pretty much told the crowds that you either submit or you will be killed, and that includes the losers of the election who are behind the protests as well.
It either stops today or tomorrow or there will be indiscriminate killings of protesters until it does, or people finally explode and they get the revolution they so desperately need.
Whatever the eventual outcome I think a lot more people will die before this is over.
I am afraid that the press does not recall that the Ayatollahs hated the Shah of Iran because he was instituting a land reform that would take away land from the clergy — which was then the preponderant landholder in the country. The dominant clerics remain today very rich and have much to lose should they ever be forced to cede power. They retain their leadership through the Pasdaran, the Revolutionary Guard, which is even more powerful than the military. Unfortunately, these fanatical Islamists will be forced from power only at gunpoint.