Reform vs. revolution not quite dead

One thing that some Western journalists have not understood about Iran is that reformists as a political group may not be popular as they once were, but reform as an idea has never lost support even among the youth as the potentially most radical forces of change. (The small-scale student protests several years ago never led to a wide-spread student protest, let alone to a mass protest.)

The best evidence is that nobody talks about or demands a sudden change or revolution, even the most vulnerable parts of the society who have never experienced violent and sudden change.

Their parents made the revolution happen and despite some achievements (the biggest one is getting rid of Monarchy and establishing a semi-democratic power structure), they now know the real problem is not totally how the "Mullas" rule Iran, but how every single individual in the society practices basic rules of democracy, tolerance, and transparency.

It's a boring cliché now in Iran that everybody says the problems have cultural and social reasons, not political ones. But it can still say something about the significant change that has deeply happened in the society.