These are difficult times for the mad mullahs of Tehran. There they were last month, quietly going about their business of oppressing the Iranian people, which they've been doing for the past 43 years, when a big kerfuffle broke out over the death of a 22-year-old woman named Mahsa Amini. She had been in the custody of the government morality police when she died, arrested for wearing her hijab headscarf in a manner that was deemed to be not quite right. Witnesses said she was severely beaten; the government denied this, but Amini's father was nevertheless prevented from viewing his dead daughter's body.
Protests, largely led by women, broke out immediately and quickly spread nationwide; soon they were a subject of international celebration. Domestically, more than 200 Iranians were said to have been killed, either shot or clubbed to death by security police. Forty days later, presumably to the regime's alarm, the demonstrations were going even stronger, and there was open speculation that the end might finally be at hand for the hated theocracy.
