I'm really aware of how absurd it is for me to have an opinion on this - it requires a lot of information I don't have. But my impression is that despite what we thought here in the US, the Islamic Republic had a fair amount of legitimacy among the people before the Green uprising. It was a repressive state in many ways, but it wasn't a totalitarian one, and many Iranian people were very religious and inclined to submit to the leadership of the Ayatollahs. To a certain, imperfect extent, they governed with the consent of the people.

That's finished now.