Even before US and Israeli missiles began raining down, those sensing the winds of change were forecasting a Berlin Wall moment for Iran.
Mass nationwide demonstrations in January – although savagely repressed, causing the deaths of an estimated tens of thousands – were seen as portents of a reckoning for the country’s ruling theocrats, just as the popular breaching of Berlin’s fearful symbol of Europe’s cold war division spelled the downfall of East Germany’s communist regime in 1989.
