CHANGE IN TACTICS - AT 7:41 A.M. ET:  Ace reporter Eli Lake, formerly of the well-remembered New York Sun, now of the Washington Times, reports that the opposition in Iran is changing tactics in a bid to stay alive, against the overwhelming repressive power of the regime:

Iran's pro-democracy movement is changing strategy and will use smaller and more dispersed demonstrations to try to protect protesters from security forces, who dissidents now say have killed nearly 250 people in the past 10 days.

Mohsen Makhmalbaf, a prominent Iranian filmmaker who is serving as a spokesman in the West for opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, told The Washington Times that the opposition movement is also asking Iranians all over the world to light candles in silent protest Friday to commemorate Neda Agha-Soltan, a young woman killed by security forces Saturday.

Her slaying, captured on video and sent around the world via the Internet, has become a symbol of the protest movement and of the Iranian government's crackdown on those disputing the purported landslide victory of incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

COMMENT:  Lake adds that President Obama described Neda's death as "heartbreaking."  We will add for the record that the description had to be pried out of him by a reporter at the president's news conference.  Mr. Obama's coldness will be remembered.

June 25, 2009