i read the tony karon piece listing the four possible end game scenarios for the iran crisis yesterday. the more i think about it, the more i am convinced that the first scenario--the one where iran's islamic republic is overthrown--is probably the least likely to happen even though its the one that most people are rooting for over here. also, there should also be a scenario number five: the protest loses steam and dies down, returning things back to the status quo, with ahmadinejad as president and khamenei as supreme leader.
if i had to rank the karon + my additional scenarios in order of likelihood this is how it would go, with (a) being what i think is most likely and (e) being the least:
(a) scenario five (protests dying down, ahmadinejad as president)
(b) scenario two (bloody crackdown by the governnment)
(c) scenario four (the zimbabwe option)
(d) scenario three (khamenei backing off, some sort of "adjustment" of the vote tallies and/or a revote)
(e) scenario one (iranian revolution 2.0, the islamic republic being replaced by something else)
it also possible that more than one of the above happens. a crackdown (scenario two), for example, could lead to any of the other four. but for now, i'm only willing to predict one scenario ahead.
just to be clear: this is what i think is likely to happen, not what i want to happen. if i had to rank them in that order, it would be scenario one, three, four, five, two--almost the opposite of how i rank their likelihood. so what do you think? am i too pessimistic?
