Signals that military action against Iran is a real danger have been multiplying over the past twelve months. Faced with external military intervention and internal repression, Arash Falasiri asks what course remains open to the Iranian people.

Allegations of an Iranian assassination attempt to be carried out in Washington has prompted diverse responses and analyses. Here, Arash Falasiri depicts an Islamic Republic fighting for its life in increasingly unfavourable circumstances and a Revolutionary Guard determined to capture still more of the public and economic sphere under the spectre of war.

The arrest of Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, the defeated presidential candidates and leaders of Iran's Green Movement marks a new phase of repression in Iran. But a leaderless movement may emerge from this crisis united and all the stronger, as Egypt and Tunisia's protest movements have shown, argues Arash Falasiri.

Gaddafi's resistance to popular demands and violent response presents a new model for regimes to resist democratic uprisings with extreme violence, mercenary arms, and the suppression of communications. Either countermeasures are adopted that limit the power of regimes to suppress their people, or citizens will continue to die at the hands of mad men.

The increasingly militarised confrontation between the United States, Israel and Iran only strengthens the Ahmadinejad regime's intransigence, allowing it to side step an ongoing crisis of legitimacy.

The sanctions being imposed by the UN need to be reworked to inspire the confidence of Iran's suppressed people.

Iran's fate rests on US relations with an emerging Chinese-Russian axis

The post-election crisis in Iran has revolutionised the potential for international pressure and civil action to work in harmony.