Security forces managed to intimidate protesters from appearing en masse at Neda Agha Soltan’s funeral. A senior cleric called for the death of protest leaders, Mousavi’s leadership of the protest movement has wavered and morale among pro-democracy students appears to be on the decline. Protests have been thinning, and the massive show of force seems to have done its job.  The government, and the clerics above it, appear to be secure.

Or are they? One of the strengths of the regime has always been its relative legitimacy compared with those of the Shah and Iran’s neighbors. Most urban Iranians chafe under the Islamic Republic, but they have long made accommodations with it, and it with them. The founding and the war that followed, while bringing great hardship, created a national unity and a mythology that cushioned the political costs of the brutal repression which accompanied them. Many young Iranians live double lives successfully, satisfying the public demands for piety while pursuing fun, companionship and love behind closed doors. The election process has often functioned remarkably well, yielding moderate governments that have made sustained efforts at rapprochement with the West. But all these deviations from the hard line took place within the clerical system, the legitimacy of clerical rule unquestioned. Even Mousavi is a figure of undiminished loyalty to Khomeni and the regime he created. Political change was perfectly allowable in a context in which constitutional change was impossible. Stability was thus preserved.

The brutal repression of the post-election demonstrations and the failure of the clerics to stem or even oppose it has undermined the legitimacy of the Republic among the urban young at a historical moment in which they could not be more important to Iran’s future. Seventy percent of the Iranian population is under thirty and Iran is seeking to build a self-sufficient nation that can stand as a regional power and exert influence on the world’s stage. Accomplishing this without the willing cooperation of the very people whose friends have been gunned down on the street with the public approval of the highest authority will be utterly impossible.

The repression has been a strategic error of the first order. Political challenges in Iran have been cyclical, but the next one will be a threat to the constitution and clerical rule, not just the President. When this happens, the revolt will be led for the first time by people outside the system. They will have no stake in the Republic or clerical rule. They can no longer be coopted and the results will either be revolution or genocide. Khameni would have been better advised to overturn the election and install Mousavi, who posed no threat. Instead the system has created the means of its own destruction.