Such a compromise may be shaped by the battles inside the corridors of power. The clergy, whose blessings are a key source of legitimacy for the regime, is clearly divided over the government’s handling of the election and its aftermath. Much has been made of the fact that the Assembly of Experts, the 86-member clerical body that picks the Supreme Leader, also has the right to remove him from office, and there has been speculation that former President and Mousavi ally Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who chairs the Assembly, has been lobbying clerics to rebuke Khamenei’s handling of the debacle. Whatever the reality, there’s little doubt that many of Iran’s senior clerics view Khamenei as having degraded the principle of a clerical Supreme Leader acting as a guide and arbiter to the regime’s factional battles. Khamenei has clearly become a partisan participant.

This really does hinge on unknowable questions about the rationality of various regime personages. We don’t really know what Rafsanjani is doing. But let’s say he is indeed trying to oust Khamanei. And let’s further say he succeeds. Would whatever governing arrangement comes next be prepared for a re-vote? What would its relationship be with the security apparatus? How would it consolidate its control if there’s a sudden ouster? All these questions precede any move for a “compromise.” We shouldn’t presume that an anti-Khamenei Assembly of Experts is necessarily more prepared to compromise, or even has the leverage to offer a compromise that the opposition can accept.

Some more @TehranBureau updates:

regime blaming all on terrorists backed by west, MEK [Mujahideen e-Khalq, a terrorist group formerly backed by Saddam Hussein]

the rest of the world can help by continuing to spread the word

national tv showed scenes of saturday – only scenes of protestors attacking security forces

their line (regime) is that protestors terrorists funded by west and holligans [sic -- it's a tweet, c'mon. You've never mistyped on Twitter?]

mousavi’s popularity has soared since his response to khamenei on Friday

I’ll keep watching, but so far, @TehranBureau hasn’t called for the United States to openly side with the opposition. His recommendations — “let the regime know the world is watching” — are pretty much in line with what President Obama has been saying, regardless of the Sunday-show bluster that dismisses concern for the Iranian opposition’s desires.