Iranian Protests: Twitter Now Used for Something Other than Talking About Your Cat

The spotty reports coming out of Iran are showing what appears to be a massive protest against the recent elections.  Many of these reports are coming through on social networking sites like Twitter or Facebook.  The Iranian regime is attempting to block access to these sites with very limited success.  There have been thousands of posts on Twitter of video and photos of the protests as well as the violence that has accompanied some of these.  The normal usage of Twitter, blabbing about your stupid cat, is being overshadowed as the amount of these posts grows. 

Much of the organization of these protests is being run through Twitter and today a massive rally was organized in Iran's capital, Tehran, by the opposition leader, Mir Hussein Moussavi.  If these protests continue to gather strength, this will force the regime into a corner and the reaction will likely not be pretty.  The real power in Iran does not rest within the president or with the prime minister, but with the supreme leader, the Ayatollah.  Think of him as one of the crazy cat people on Twitter.  He's getting madder and madder that his tweets aren't being heard over the din of the protesters.  Once he is threatened enough, he is likely to use force to quell this movement. 

Once it gets to the point of force, the situation can become very destabilizing to the entire country.  This will become a power struggle and the entire country could very easily delve into a civil war.  However, if these protests slowly peter out, it is likely not much will change in Iran, and this is how the regime would like this all to end.