IRANIANS ARE PROTESTING AN ELECTION, NOT THE ISLAMIC STATE.

Among Mousavi supporters, a ritual is emerging: Each night, folks open their windows or step out on balconies at a coordinated time, shouting "Allah-o-akbar!" The phrase means, "God is Great," and as Ali Gharib writes at Mondoweiss, the call hearkens back to the hopeful early days of the 1979 revolution, when Iranians were united against the Shah's totalitarianism. In other words, Iranians are not protesting the Islamic State itself; they are simply protesting this particular Ahmadinejad-led government, and this particular stolen election. They are still quite attached to the idealism of 1979. Gharib explains:

The regime is NOT going to collapse. And that's not the goal of any of those marching Tehran's streets.

This is not about ending the Islamic Revolution, it's about getting back to it. For all his talk of returning it to its roots, Ahmadinejad's slow crawl from a de facto dictatorship to a de jure one is a shift away from the Revolution, which was, let's not forget, first and foremost about getting rid of the dictatorial and tyrannical Shah, not about Islam and that state.

Moussavi has made clear that the people are behind him not for his sake, but for the sake of the Republic that they love. Likewise, the emerging ritual of standing at windows, balconies, and rooftops at around 10 pm and shouting "Allah-o-akbar" is a call of hope for the idealism of 1979. ... I think it's the most moving thing to come out of the whole ordeal so far.

--Dana Goldstein