But wait a minute. During the Cold War, before it collapsed in a heap of rubble, the Soviet Union was a country of nearly 250 million people. Its mighty Red Army had defeated the German Wehrmacht in World War II. The USSR had tens of thousands of nuclear bombs and it had missiles bigger than ours, capable of lobbing 20-megaton bombs on American cities. It held half a dozen European nations of ancient lineage captive, and financed dreaded revolutionary forces around the globe. It had a nuclear submarine fleet that was better than ours, and that was equipped with sea-launched missiles that could be fired at U.S. targets from locations only minutes from our coastline.

Iran, in contrast, is a poor country of 70 million. It has no nuclear weapons. It has no missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads, much less of carrying them halfway around the world to U.S. targets. It hasn’t conquered or even attacked another country in centuries, and seems to show little interest in doing so (it couldn’t even defeat Iraq, a country less than half its size, which attacked it in the 1980s). Its navy consists of little boats more suitable to towing water skiers than to fighting American carrier battle groups. Its air force wouldn’t last a day in a contest with the planes from just one U.S. carrier. Hell, Iran's leadership is afraid of its own women! But Big John is afraid, and he says we all should be too. [More] . . read more

This is a computer-literate society, and as the BBC reported this morning on the Today programme, the demographics of those who have taken their dissent out on the streets who how to make their voice heard on the web too. Among the keenest protesters are well-educated and westernised young people who have active on the internet for years now.

What the web has provided is a means to provide near real-time and unfiltered information to pour out of Iran. Twitter in particular has been a focus for those want the absolute latest news. After an initial fight amongst users about what Twitter feed people should follow for the latest on Iran, most are now using the #iranelection tag to send in their tweets.

Some have clearly being using the micro-blogging service to try and organise protests. “After yesterday million-large protests, continue your peaceful protests today in Tehran at Valiasr Street 5pm TELL EVERYONE,” wrote one Twitter user this morning.

Initially, reports from Tehran straight after the election suggested the authorities had tried to interfere or had disabled access to some sites, like Twitter and Facebook, and even blocked SMS text messages, a preferred medium of communication amongst young Iranian. Reporters Without Borders said that ten or so pro-opposition websites were censored in the aftermath of the election results being announced. Under such conditions, Iranian hackers reportedly help to keep channels to access the web open and even took down Mr. Ahmadinejad's website in an act of sabotage.

In this context, it is easier to understand some of the debates that are raging on social media sites. Some Twitter users complained that the #iranelection feed was being watched, filtered and censored by the Iranian regime. As that rumour began to spread, others said this was a deliberate misinformation trying to make people wary about using Twitter.

Despite all of this, the #iranelection feed has been amongst the most popular Twitter feed for the past days. Seeing this unprecedented surge of interest, Twitter announced yesterday that it will change the times that it would take down the site for maintenance. Twitter moved the downtime to the middle of the night Iran time, with founder Biz Stone explaining that they were recognising “the role Twitter is currently playing as an important communication tool in Iran.”

The revolution may not be televised in Iran, but it may well be tweeted.

[via Times Online]  . . read more