Amid the scenes of Iranians bravely and peacefully protesting the results of Iran's blatantly rigged election, Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei recently had the audacity to address his nation and blame the "Zionist-affiliated media 
It was Iran's own populace broadcasting their nation's defining moment.
[for] falsely portraying [the] political situation." This, in an age where even the most aggressive attempts by the Iranian government to block Internet, television and cellphone use all miserably failed to prevent thousands of protesters' high-resolution pictures, videos and news articles from reaching the outside world.
What the Ayatollah shamefully ignored is that the so-called "Zionist media" could not have falsely portrayed the Iranian protests, nor did any global entity have to. Instead, it was Iran's own populace broadcasting their nation's defining moment - proudly, defiantly and peacefully for the whole world to see, extensively using Twitter as their newest digital vehicle. Equipped with daft, geriatric leaders, the Ayatollah was singularly alone in ignoring the digital media revolution transpiring on their own youth-filled streets. The world was left wondering whether Ayatollah Khamenei even recognized the basic liberating power of the Internet.
Unlike in 1979, Iranian students and protesters today are armed with nigh-unstoppable technological means of instantly sharing their courageous message, and are doing a better job than any mass-scale Zionist misinformation campaign could ever have. Indeed, in an increasingly pervasive digital world, Ayatollah Khamenei's finger-pointing at the "Zionist media" is strikingly retro in its vague, libelous nature. Almost every cellphone today is equipped with picture and video camera capabilities, thus any moment, anywhere, can be instantly recorded, uploaded and shared with the world - and so they were in Iran.
As a further indictment of the Ayatollah's fleeting competence, his re-anointment of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the least forward-thinking decision for the life of the Iranian theocracy. Despite all of the obvious problems that Ahmadinejad represents to the world around Iran, Khamenei appears more comfortable with the 'devil he knows' in his pal Mahmoud. Alternatively, while Mir Hossein Mousavi is no political outsider to Khamenei - having served as Prime Minister from 1981-1989 during the Iran-Iraq War - his 'reform' platform scared the Ayatollah away from giving him the presidential reins of power.
If the ayatollahs were calculating longer-term, then Mousavi was undoubtedly a more logical candidate for Khamenei to hand-pick. Nonetheless, in an effort to condemn the West, blame the "Zionists" (and their media) and reinforce his withering grip on 'supreme' power, Khamenei has chosen a comfortable fate that tragically will only lead to future conflict, internal instability and more destitution for the Iranian populace. It may also lead to his deposal.
Again, this uncertainty suggests Khamenei's ultimate authority and intellectual supremacy is crumbling inside the Iranian theocratic machine. Last week, several of Iran's top clerics, including Ayatollah Rafsanjani, openly questioned Khamenei's wisdom in castigating an overwhelming majority of young Iranians. These same young Iranians will begin assuming positions of influence within the country over the next decade, learning the ropes of power to one-day-soon remove their clearly foolish political elders.
This is an outcome that Mousavi's supporters can most definitely foresee. Sadly, the vigor and enthusiasm displayed by the young 20-something crowds in calling for the replacement of Ahmadinejad will eventually give way to the jobless financial and social realities of living in an increasingly sanctioned nation. Indeed, the repressive actions undertaken by the Iranian police and Revolutionary Guard have already dispelled much of the protesters' passion.
Further, as Iran's leaders relentlessly pursue nuclear capabilities - with all of the resultant questioning over its flagrantly covert nature - these same young Iranians foresee the cataclysmic conflict that will explode as a result of Ahmadinejad's stubborn refusal to halt uranium enrichment. This issue presents a paradox for Israeli and Western policymakers, as Iran's nuclear program is seen as a ray of technological hope and national pride for repressed Iranians, but is nevertheless a frightening tool wielded in the hands of Ahmadinejad, Khamenei and even Mousavi.
As such, Ahmadinejad's vile rhetoric is set to increase as his re-anointment by Khamenei solidifies his belief that Allah selected him to hasten the return of the 12th "Hidden Imam". In speech after speech, this fanatical, Holocaust-denying national president has made clear his fundamental belief that Allah alone placed him in Iran to lead the world into the Islamic Apocalypse. If only Iran had the venomous weapons capability to ignite such a conflict, Ahmadinejad might soon be in paradise and the Persian and Israeli sands aglow with the soft green tinge of a fresh nuclear missile exchange.
This is not "Zionist" hearsay, Western hyperbole or underhanded slander against Ahmadinejad, but rather a factual account of Ahmadinejad and Khamenei's utterly twisted 'end times' worldview. Just watch Ahmadinejad's subtitled speeches on YouTube (particularly at the UN General Assembly in September 2007) to uncover these disturbing truths about Iran's newly re-anointed, nuclear-weapons-seeking president. This terrifying reality should serve as a stark backdrop to the violent crackdown on protesters and to the Islamic Republic's last-ditch efforts to maintain absolute power over its disenchanted populace. This is a regime seeking survival at all costs in order to soon fulfill their desired apocalyptic destiny.
How then, does the West support such a repressed society against their loathed leaders, while simultaneously putting an abrupt stop to that regime's contentious, rapidly-advancing nuclear program? How is it possible to engage the Supreme Leaders of Iran on the single most dangerous, volatile and lethal weapons technology, when these same men so proudly defy international calls either for a new election or, at the very least, an open, transparent recount of the votes?
These questions are so patently confounding that warning sirens should be blaring in the heads of any Western diplomat seriously considering "negotiations without preconditions” with Iran. Any shred of credibility that Iran's 
These same young Iranians will begin assuming positions of influence within the country over the next decade.
"Supreme Leaders" may have possessed (and there was little even before this election) has now been incinerated in the fires of Ayatollah Khamenei's intransigence, ignominy and ignorance. If anything, these future nuclear negotiations should have more preconditions than ever before, to ensure that any potential resolution on Iran's nuclear program is actually adhered to, respected and enforced.
Israeli leaders are carefully scrutinizing this intellectual quagmire and ultimately preparing for worst-case-scenarios with Iran. Binyamin Netanyahu knows Israel is caught in the cross-hairs of this international morass as a negotiable bargaining chip, while literally caught in the missile cross-hairs of Iran's avowed proxy armies Hamas and Hizbullah. With a whole generation of young, freedom-yearning Iranians depending on the West's support during their current leader's shamefully insane moment, Prime Minister Netanyahu must stake Israel's position and stick to it with unrelenting determination.
Finally, the protesters' vivid pictures and Twittered accounts must speak far louder than Ayatollah Khamenei's failed attempts to shut them up. Iranian students are encouraged to aggressively seek professions that will provide the experience and personal skills needed to lead Iran out of its dark days today, into a brighter future alongside the international community. As an emblem of peaceable democracy in the region, Israel too can join with these Iranian students to leverage their potential futures against their leaders' delusional, dystopian nuclear dreams. Israel and the Iranian students have few other options at this contentious time.
