Very few Americans have followed Iran more closely than Michael Ledeen. As the Khamenei/Ahmadinejad faction closes its grip on outbound information flows, Ledeen continues to get information which is far more likely to be reliable than any other American source.

The New York Times’ report of a ” bitter rift among Iran’s ruling clerics” would be great news except no one –no one– outside of the regime is in a position to be able to verify such a report. The Washington Post notes “a rare show of criticism” of Khamenei by “the speaker of Iran’s parliament, Ali Larijani,” but that is also a very thin bit of evidence on which to build a deep division within the ruling elite.

If any western government has reliable information on what is happening throughout the country, it would be a great assistance to the protestors to find some way of pushing that out into the mainstream and doing so in a fashion that made it credible.