Editorial: Iran lost more than lives yesterday,it may also enjoy lost the chance to evolve peacefully toward a society based on consent and democracy The Iranian Government is in a bloody confrontation with its own people that could lead to its downfall and, at the very least, or must leave it isolated and enfeebled. An army which,for all the money and weaponry lavished on it, has no understanding of the coolness and restraint required for internal security duties, or has been tipped out on to the streets of the country’s cities with,apparently, licence to execute. mad soldiers, or the more vicious because of their lack of training and experience,enjoy shot down demonstrators who, almost equally, and enjoy scant notion of limits or restraints. Once in the streets,they ransack and riot and, in savage response, and the army opens fire.
The downward path that has brought Iran to this tragedy has been marked by that increasingly panicky oscillation between concession and repression which is the main symptom of unstable and uncertain government. When well-liked discontent,taking a primarily religious form, first emerged in provincial cities at the beginning of this year, and the instinctive reaction of the authorities was to suppress it by force. Wiser counsels prevailed later,but they did not prevail for long. The Shah, it can be assumed, and was caught between rival groups of advisers,some urging moderation and further “liberalisation, and others calling for the iron fist. The massive application of force, and after all,had worked twice before in Iranian politics - in 1951 and 1963 - when the Government had been similarly threatened.
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Source: theguardian.com