> But it all went downhill following the 1999 riots.
Not really. He fought for and managed to bring charges against the Revolutionary Guards who barged into the university without authorization. He has backed the student movement on many occasions.
I don't know if you know about the cases of "serial assassinations". There was a set of politically motivated assassinations in Iran which stemmed from Khatami's refusal to back down. The secret police then turned against the most vocal voices who used the new found freedom to speak very harshly against the regime. As you can imagine it is just too hard to investigate say rouge agents in FBI, especially when they have powerful supporters. Just the same, Khatami got many resignations and managed to replace a few critical posts. Yes, this is not as good as prosecuting them for murder...but it was better than many had expected and the assassinations have stopped.
> I suspect, he actually views the status quo as being better than the purely secular regime that would likely come from a revolution.
On the other hand, may be he thought there will be no revolution and just a revolt that will lead to the deaths of many students and resumption of sever oppression. It is hard to tell.
> Could you elaborate on what makes you think they're willing?
They have been willing for a long time. That has not been the issue. The issue has been lack of acceptable alternatives. To have a revolution, you need two things: a wide spread support (which has existed for some time) and a unifying leadership (which has NOT been there). Those who have been seeing a revolution in every little protest are typically those who have had no popular base in Iran. Pretty much every "resistance" group you see here are full of it and without internal support. The real resistance is inside Iran.
The problem for the regime is that the generation they are facing now is the generation of the revolution. These are the people who grew up through it all and therefore are not afraid of the regime. More importantly, the survivor bias means these are the people who know how to handle the regime. It takes at least one generation for this to happen and the time is up.
As to real evidence of what makes me thing the people have been willing to resist, you have to know something about the Iranians. Resistance there always starts with cultural work and symbolic gestures. For example, you have had people who have tried to seriously undermine Islam as a whole by publishing the stupidest of Islamic beliefs under the title of "Answer to the Important Questions that have Concerned the World Over" (it is a mouth full but it boils down to writing an Islamic FAQ). Except that in such an FAQ you find sacred quotes about did the prophet shit like a normal person (answer, no, his smelt like roses!). The whole thing was designed to embarrass the mullahs but there was nothing they could do about it because it was a collection out of various important Islamic texts.
In parallel, others started reviving the pre-Islamic culture of Iran. You may have noticed the reference to "char-shanbe-soori" in the call for referendum letter. That is a celebration which involves praising fire and dancing around it. The regime has been calling it a misguided pagan ritual. But when you get such a huge number of Iranians participating in it (even more than during Shah's) then you have to see this as a symbolic rejection of the Islamic regime and perhaps even Islam.
In addition to these symbolic fights, there have been several uprisings which resulted the deaths of many Revolutionary Guards. At one point in time it got so bad that the regime asked the army to take part in maintaining order. The army, along with the police, refused to do so.
The fire of the revolution has been burning under the surface for quite a while. BUT, there has not been any leader acceptable to people and capable of organizing and starting the rebellion. That seems to be changing now, thanks in part to the freedom of the press provided by Khatami. When the people stopped supporting Khatami, that was a sign, IMO, that they were considering their other alternative.
> Maybe the presence of 150k+ American troops on the country's borders will drive the situation to reach a boiling point or compel elements in the conscript-filled Iranian military to support an uprising;
I don't think so. This is extremely unlikely. What the US presence is likely to do (at best) is to put a damper on the regime's use of force in case of riots. Perhaps that will be enough.
> Iranians love America. Or at least they love the image of America.
I've asked around about this from people who have recently returned from Iran. The answer is 50:50. The younger generation likes America (not love it). The older generation still has memories of Shah and is wary of America.
> In my last trip to Iran, I was told by a taxi driver that “the door to heaven is somewhere in America.”
LOL! This doesn't mean what he thought. Iranians have a culture of highly flattering their guests and anyone else they want to respect or make feel comfortable. This kind of statement doesn't mean the speaker doesn't like Americans, but it means a lot less than it sounds in English.
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