Where will it end? Where CAN it end?

A number of options are on the table in Iran and have been considered, for example by Micheal Ledeen. Everything could transpire from the Iranian second revolution, as I am tempted to call it, from a bloody abatement to a change of the guard to an actual revolution that puts away with the whole theocratic dictatorship you have in Iran. In theory, all of these developments are possible; some would say, the survival of the regime by pure force and even more brutality would be the most probable one.
I do not think so. We have been witnesses to something like a spontaneous uprising in the last three days; all the contempt that built up during the last thirty years and gained more and more momentum in the last few years only needed a good reason to erupt. And the Iranis got the best of reasons: quelled hope and destroyed illusions.
Now they beat the people, they throw them into their dungeons, and they even kill them (for a sad account of what's happening, pay a visit to Andrew Sullivan who covers the events with the help of a lot of Iranis out there). That quality of the conflict originates with the regime, and it will not be forgotten. After all, this is not Tiananmen - not a few thousand Chinese in a country that holds a billion of them; and not just students, as it seems, but a broad cross-section of the Iranian people. They may get killed, they may be suppressed once more. It is possible. But they will not forget who did it, and they will not forget what they dreamed and aspired to during these days. You cannot hold a whole population hostage, at least not in a country like Iran that has fully adopted all the means of modern technology (Iran is the third-largest nation of bloggers, for example; only Twitter is making possible that what is currently happening). And Iran is too important: there's too much oil (not like in Burma or North Korea, for example).

So where will it stop? Can it stop any longer before they have travelled the whole way? Will the regime survive in a new disguise? I think that Ahmadinejad and his likes blew it when they took resort to brutal force and only urged on and itnsified the protests threw it; and then they tried more of the same, more force, and still try it, but it will not help them any more than the first time. They should have let Moussavi win; he would not have changed the system much. Change would have been inevitable anyway; but it would have occured at a much lower pace. Now things have been sped up to the limit, and I do not believe Iranians will settle after all their blood has been spilled for the old status quo, only with someone else at the helm, although he is a "reform candidate". Even it this revolution should get shattered, the Iranian people will have won. The regime has shown its most ugly face. Freedom will come, eventually.
I only hope that not too many of those fighting for it right now will have to give their lives. If I did not believe in humanity but in any deity, believe me, I'd pray.