ABSTRACT
The belligerent custodians of the Islamic Republic had forced Mohammad Ali Abtahi to confess to crimes that made a dead chicken laugh, as they say in Persian, and as an oppositional figure quickly pointed out. The Islamic Republic is self-destructing. Over the last 2 months, scores of innocent young Iranians have been cold-bloodedly murdered, either in the streets or else under torture in the dungeons of the Islamic Republic. The Islamic Republic is self-destructing because it played its transparent hand for too long and too clumsily, precisely the same way that the Jewish state has played its victimhood for too long and too clumsily. The Islamic Republic has never faced such a deep crisis of legitimacy in its 30-year turbulent history. The crisis of legitimacy that has now finally caught up with the Islamic Republic is not only evident in its vile and violent behavior toward its own citizens but in fact coterminous with its very existence.
