And they could even get him involved with a bloody slaughter of students. So what was supposed to be an era of peace could turn into harsh suppression. The events in Iran can be seen as revolution coming upon revolution, or the end of the first Islamic revolution. So says the American professor Anthony Cordesman, who earlier worked in the US embassy in Teheran during the last years of the Shah and who is an expert in Gulf affairs. He says we have to be cautious when talking about revolutions.
People always think that revolution is a boiling up from below.
The Iranian Revolution could go on for 50 years as happened in the French and Russian revolutions. We know some important events are going on in Iran, but we don't know what they mean. Two issues are involved. First is whether the demonstrations could have broadened out to a general attack against the government by focusing on the students' fundamental differences with the traditionalists and conservatives. In this respect the students have to be very cautious because they are not just against the religious ideology but are entirely alienated from the Islamic revolution.