Yesterday, I ended a post quoting Gandhi. “First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.” The final line read, “From football hooligans, to protesters, to criminals, to terrorists.”

Hopefully Gandhi was spot on.

This morning a headline at CNN reads, “Iranian forces ready to clear country of ‘hooligans’.”

Well, the fight is definitely on. The Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is combining the forces of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, the volunteer paramilitary force known as the Basij along with local police and additional “security forces” to “clean the country of these plotters and hooligans” not to mention “illegal rioters”, “vandals” and even “terrorists.”

According to the Associated Press, referencing a post on the Revolutionary Guard website, warned protesters to “be prepared for a resolution and revolutionary confrontation with the Guards, Basij and other security forces and disciplinary forces.”

Clearly, Ahmadinejad and the Ayatollah are refusing to blink. The protesters, impassioned further by the killing of Neda, have their unity, their passion and their patriotism to stand against those wronging them. They may have one more ally, and not from the West.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am far from a scholar of Islam or of the Holy Quran. I have studied both in my interest of comparative religion and philosophy. That said, the 22 Sura (22: 39) states “To those against whom war is made, permission is given (to fight), because they are wronged;- and verily, Allah is most powerful for their aid;-”