Iran's Big Day Begins on Thursday

Just in case you have been living under a rock (or perhaps 3 feet of snow with no power), tomorrow is sure to be a big news day about Iran. It is unknown how good the information will be coming out of Iran though, the internet is almost completely on lock down coming out of Iran right now and the Great Persian Wall is unlikely to come down if all hell breaks out... which it likely will.

Gmail has already been cut off, as is Facebook and Twitter, and there have been satellite dishes and cell phones confiscated by the authorities. Information control in Iran has gone beyond anything any other democracy in the world has ever done.

I guess that tells us a bit about Iranian democracy...

The IRGC has recruited over 200,000 people to represent a big show of support for the government, but organizers of the opposition are hoping for numbers as high as 3 million in protesting the government. I'll wait and see. Big numbers are easy to throw around, too easy...

There is good reason to believe that tomorrow will begin a brief period of internal unrest in Iran. There are all kinds of ways to speculate what comes next, including some fighting between Hezbollah and Israel. I actually think the odds war is about to break out across the Middle East are very low, but I will note a few points of interest.

As is usually the case in the Middle East, the US fired first - specifically with more economic sanctions against the IRGC - a reminder the US does not want war in the Middle East.

And one small observation... the new moon is Saturday night, just after the Sabbath. If Israel was to take on Lebanon and Syria while all hell is taking place in Iran, so much for that mutual defense treaty thing between Syria and Iran. I do not see a scenario where Iran attacks Israel while dealing with huge internal problems; the government would only be reinforcing the protester complaints the government is too focused on other people and not the people of Iran.

All we know for sure is if all hell breaks out internally in Iran over the next few days, which is very possible, watch out for unpredictable events that in hindsight - will be reflected upon as completely predictable.

Internal chaos in countries like Iran is never a good thing for regional stability.