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The only problem is that near as I can tell there's nothing the US can really do to help the Iranian opposition except hope, any more than we can do anything to ensure that Sistani uses his considerable stature and influence in a constructive way....
That's true to some degree, but there's definitely something we could have NOT done in January 2002 - and that's have a president who pointlessly played bully and referred to Iran as part of an "axis of evil," completely stopping in his tracks a relatively pro-reform president who had, up until that point, had some success beating back the power of the anti-reform clerics.