IRAN UPDATE - AT 3:14 P.M. ET:  There are new developments in Iran. Our earlier report, based on first information, suggested that the authorities may have broken the back of the demonstrations.   Later reports tell us that some demonstrators did attempt to mass in the streets, only to be viciously attacked by the mullah's holy warriors, who were also massed.  The New York Times has a good report:

TEHRAN — Police officers used sticks and tear gas to force back thousands of demonstrators under plumes of black smoke in the capital on Saturday, a day after Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said there would be “bloodshed” if street protests continued over the disputed presidential election.

And...

The violence unfolded on a day of extraordinary tension across Iran. The opposition leader, Mir Hussein Moussavi, again called for a recount, as opposition protesters swore to continue pressing their claims of a stolen election against Iran’s embattled and increasingly impatient clerical leadership. Iran’s divisions played out on the streets. Regular security forces stood back and urged protesters to go home and avoid bloodshed, while the feared pro-government militia, the Basij, beat protesters with clubs and, witnesses said, electric prods.

Other reports put the number of demonstrators at about 3,000, far fewer than the hundreds of thousands who braved the streets in recent days.  Clearly, fear is taking its toll.

There's an additional element, reported by London's Telegraph:

Iran's defeated presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi on Saturday night told his supporters he was ready for martyrdom, and demanded that the entire disputed election be annulled.

and...

A witness told Reuters that Mr Mousavi had called for a national strike if he was arrested.

It was an unprecedented act in defiance of Ayatollah Khamenei, who has declared President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the winner of the June 12 election and on Friday ordered an end to protests by demonstrators who say Mousavi was the winner.

COMMENT:  This is a continuing story, and we can't draw many conclusions from the sketchy reports available from Tehran.  Mousavi is talking tough, but the question is whether large numbers of his followers will continue to take to the streets in the face of a violent crackdown.

June 20, 2009