Analysis: Beginning of the end for the ayatollahs? | Jerusalem Post

Analysis: Beginning of the end for the ayatollahs?

Dec. 29, 2009
Yaakov Katz , THE JERUSALEM POST

In mid-June, about a week after the presidential election in Iran and at the height of the protests on Teheran's streets, Mossad chief Meir Dagan appeared before the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee and predicted that the riots would not escalate into a revolution.

In the short term, Dagan was right. The protests that began after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stole the election from Mir Hossein Mousavi did not immediately topple the 30-year-old Islamic regime.

But months later, there are those in Israel's defense establishment who believe that Dagan was way off the mark and that the protests that began in June and reignited last week are all part of a process that will ultimately spell the end for the ayatollahs.