Iranians Betrayed by Obama Administration

Tuesday, June 16, 2009 9:34 AM

By: Kenneth R. Timmerman

More than 1.5 million protesters took to the streets of Tehran on Monday, marking the largest anti-regime demonstration Iran has seen since the final days of the shah in early 1979.

Seven people were killed by anti-riot police and roving bands of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad supporters. Many of those supporters shielded their faces from surveillance videos that plainclothes police were shooting.

The protesters included some unlikely participants: 16 Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps officers pledged to join the people’s movement, according to initial reports from Tehran. That signaled that the once-solid support of the guard corps for Ahmadinejad is beginning to crack.

The 16 officers were arrested after meeting secretly with top regular army officers on Monday night.

Many of the older men and women who took to the streets also demonstrated to bring down the shah 30 years ago, wrote Kaveh Mohseni, who publishes the French-language Web site, Iran-Resist.

Now, “people are waiting for international support,â€