[Lonesome in Massachussets]

A prediction: No one alive today will live to see what we call civil government in Iran. The placed is doomed to be a mess forever.

[Eurotwit]

You might be right. I pray that you are not.

[FITZ]

I think you're wrong, even the clerics have been divided, the more freedom tolerating clerics still have support of the people, I think there could be a fairly peaceful transition once they get the hard-liners out.

[lilylangtree]

Ansare Hezbollah--Is this the same group as the terrorist group in Israel? Also, Hezbollah means "Party of God". With the people uprising, does that mean the Party shouldn't make God angry?

[jackbill]

A prediction: No one alive today will live to see what we call civil government in Iran. The placed is doomed to be a mess forever.

I strongly disagree. Before Carter, the Shah attempted to bring his country into the 20th Century. The company for which I worked had large contracts to set up electronics industries in Iran (watch, radio and TV factories). Friends of mine spent years there, and still have fond memories of the Iranians.

It was working out beautifully. The Shah figured he had only a few decades of oil and he wanted to make sure that his country would have something beyond oil. A group (minority?) of fundamentalists caused the Shah to be repressive, via his secret police. It ended up with the revolution, and Carter abondoning the Shah.

For some reason, the young people of Iran (who are the majority) seem to remember how it was back then, and that's what they seem to want. And, if we give them a modicum of support, I think that they can get it.