Monday open thread: Good news from Iran

Well. It seems like the mullahs in Iran are seeing ghosts of 1979.

Iran's morality police, which is tasked with enforcing the country's Islamic dress code, is being disbanded, the country's attorney general says.

Mohammad Jafar Montazeri's comments, yet to be confirmed by other agencies, were made at an event on Sunday.

Iran has seen months of protests over the death of a young woman in custody.

Mahsa Amini had been detained by the morality police for allegedly breaking strict rules on head coverings.

Mr Montazeri was at a religious conference when he was asked if the morality police was being disbanded.

"The morality police had nothing to do with the judiciary and have been shut down from where they were set up," he said.

Control of the force lies with the interior ministry and not with the judiciary.

On Saturday, Mr Montazeri also told the Iranian parliament the law that requires women to wear hijabs would be looked at.

This is too precious by half. Montazeri is basically sloughing off responsibility for the morality police to another ministry. It's Kremlinology, where ministries blame each other for a colossal cock-up.

But that dog won't hunt. The prevention of vice was baked into the Islamic regime from the beginning. To say that this was a rogue department begs for derision. And the protests have moved far beyond scarves and hijabs. The entire edifice of the Islamic Republic is no longer tenable. Iran has a proud, 3,000 year history, a history where it was the first global empire, a history where it contested with Rome for dominance. This is a history which is not compatible with a medieval religious regime.

Will the mullahs' regime fall? It's too soon to tell. But the fact that it has made this move is telling. It came to power in a revolution, and it sees revolution again. Millions are invested in the regime, in the power it affords and the wealth. But the women of Iran have unleashed an earthquake. May it shake the regime's foundations to rubble.

This is your open thread.

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