The examples do not stop there: Burma’s junta, which rewards a loyal, if corrupt, military even as the general economy withers, has resisted democracy protests for three decades; North Korea’s all-powerful military has never let protests fester at all. In Indonesia and Nicaragua, the first cracks in dictatorships quickly shattered myths of impregnable control. South Korea’s experience was different still, but also limited as a parallel to Iran. Its generals, who had run an authoritarian government during the Cold War, were persuaded that they would not lose all their power in a democracy; that became the key to establishing one in the late 1980s.

“It’s too early to draw any conclusions about which model fits in Iran,” said Zbigniew Brzezinski, who, as Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser, had the thankless task of trying to establish relations with the leaders of Iran’s revolution in 1979. “But in this case, I have to say I’m pessimistic in the short term, and optimistic in the long term.”

That pretty well captures the mood of Barack Obama’s advisers. In background conversations last week, several cautioned that it was not clear what the Iranians had in mind. “The students in Tiananmen wanted real democracy, the Poles wanted regime change, but the Iranians might be looking for something in between,” one of Obama’s top advisers said. “But the more the supreme leader cracks down, the more radicalised the opposition may become.”

The clerics may be repressive hardliners, but they are authentically Iranian. And so far, the Revolutionary Guard seems completely on the side of the supreme leader and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

... contd.