Neda Agha-Soltan 1982 - 2009

Neda Agha-Soltan, the unarmed, silently observing 26 year old woman mercilessly gunned down Saturday in the Tehran streets by basij militia, has become front page news at CNN as well as CBS and countless other sites. President Obama commented on the footage, "Heartbreaking." The Iranian regime would have to work long and hard to find an individual more problematic on the posters of its opposition. As intense public interest propels her background to the forefront of public discourse, we find an innocent, harmless, and utterly peaceful citizen of Iran. If the regime guns down a woman like this, they can shoot anyone.

As someone fond of game theory, I am almost encouraged by the regime’s credibility crippling suggestion that the footage of Neda’s death was staged. They further offend and outrage the planet with bully speak about a special court to "teach a lesson."

The genie is out of the bottle. The arrested are martyrs waiting to happen, and a young, beautiful, and unquestionably innocent woman is now the face of a movement brimming with decades of feminine resentment in a country where women outnumber men and the face of the government is an arrogant, misogynist thug. Do they have any grasp of how what they do to the arrested occurs in the new reality?

The regime is kindling wood on top of sawdust. They just lit a match and tossed it on to the pile. Sometimes this happens ridiculously slowly. Then again, sometimes you wake up the next morning to footage of dead officials.