Khamenei and his cohorts responded with maximum force. More than 200 members of the Majlis, Iran's parliament, turned the supposedly dignified setting into a scene more reminiscent of the beer gardens filled with brawling Brownshirts. These "lawmakers" gathered in a circle, shouting and demanding the death of opposition leaders, Mousavi, Karroubi, and even Khatami, who had nothing to do with the demonstrations. A sudden, remarkable surge in the number of executions occurred in Iran's jails, obviously calculated to frighten people from participating in any future demonstrations. Everyone in a key position of power, and even those who had retired, was forced to issue a statement supporting Khamenei. (The uniformity of these announcements was startlingly similar to the hackneyed shows of fidelity...
