By Jeff M

For the sake of honoring American history, for celebrating what our forefathers encouraged and finally fought hard and violently for, I hope that everyone is paying close attention to what is unfolding in Tehran, Iran. I know I am.

It's difficult for me to know exactly when this demonstration captured my attention. Perhaps it was the mere mention of it on the news wires last week, that thousands of Iranians had amassed and began marching in the streets of Tehran in opposition to what they claim was a "bogus" election; or maybe it was that foreign journalists were forbidden to cover the events from the streets and had (and are still) depending on "citizen journalism" for unfolding events; or that the concept of citizen solidarity was being strengthened by a technological invention called Twitter. Yes, it's difficult to know.

All I know is that I'm enthralled. I'm checking news wires every hour, scanning YouTube for the latest image of fists held high, faces clad in mask, police running forward, backward, sideways, into and away from the clamoring crowd. The vehicles in conflagaration. And smiles --- oh, yes, every now and then, a man rushing by the camera (sometimes a woman), cracking a smile as he storms a barricade and throws a rock into a forest of batons.

Even President Barack Obama, in a statement issued Saturday, appears to support what's going on there. He has challenged Iran's government, ruled by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and, let's be honest, the acting Wizard of Oz, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, "to halt a 'violent and unjust' crackdown on dissenters,'" and instead recognize and affirm the voice of the people.

"We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people," Obama said in a written statement, as reported by the Associated Press. "The universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, and the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights."

I'm especially interested in the developing reactions of the reformist presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, who has maintained he won the election and is the victim of "widespread fraud." On Saturday, he has said he "is ready for martyrdom," an important declaration, I feel, because any leader who navigates a people, who steers them to a desired result, must first acknowledge his acceptance of the movement and do so with charasma and confidence.

What Mousavi must do now is communicate a specific vision for Iran and for its immediate and long term future. The demonstrators must know what they are fighting for --- beyond the obvious reasons. That will empower the cause. That will fill the tanks and keep the engines running.

And it's important for the demonstrators to keep demonstrating, for it is the general populace of any nation that keeps it functioning. If you want to collapse a society, take from it its gasoline, its oil, its gears and wheels --- or to put it more simply: take from it its blood, its sweat, its human limbs.

If the people remove themselves from their chains and their societal duties, the current system, created and enforced by the current leadership, will fall.

Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah, then, will have no choice but to recognize the people for what they are: Iran.