Hell in the Islamic Republic

By ROGER COHEN
NYT

NEW YORK — A year ago, in the weeks before the tumultuous June 12 election, Iran was a nation of festive hope and vibrant debate.

Charges and counter-charges filled the airwaves as large crowds, for and against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, filled the streets. A late Green wave surged behind Mir Hussein Moussavi, the opposition candidate.

Then night descended and horror. Ahmadinejad’s “victory” was celebrated with brutality worthy of a putsch. Thugs prowled, armed with the license of the Islamic Republic to beat women.

Lofty clerics bound by those beautiful words — “In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate” — showed no mercy, no compassion, in unleashing the forces who reduced the pre-electoral vitality to a hallucination and thoughtful intellectuals to whimpering wrecks prepared to “confess” to plotting velvet revolution.

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