While the rest of the media is focused on the protests as a sign of a possible revolution in Iran, the one thing they're missing is that if Iran is truly looking for revolutionary change, they need some support.
I'll explain what I mean in a minute, but first to understand what's really going on in Iran, you need to understand their power structure:
1) Allah
2) Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei: Has ultimate authority in all matters of state, including nuclear policy.
3) Guardian Council: 12-man body, six senior clerics appointed by the supreme leader and six Islamic jurists. Vets aspiring candidates for presidential elections and must approve the election results.
4) Assembly of Experts: 88-member assembly. A clerical body that can sack the supreme leader, although it has never intervened in policy. People elect the assembly from a government-approved list.
5) President: Completely subordinate to supreme leader.
Merely changing presidents won't constitute a revolution, because the Guardian Council has to vet and clear all of the candidates.
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For example, in the June 12 election, they disqualified 475 hopefuls — including 42 women — leaving just four candidates for people to choose from.
So why are people rallying in the streets for Mousavi — a man who's such a friend to the West that he started Iran's nuclear program?
It might be because two-out-of-three Iranians born after the 1979 Revolution feel like their votes were stolen and there's some good evidence to support that.
You may have seen reports that voter turnout in 80 to 170 cities exceeded 100 percent, but those estimates were way off. The Guardian Council says it happened in only about 50 cities, which means it only affects a meager 3 million votes.
More important is the way the government and its paramilitary groups have handled the protests, with beatings, shootings, arrests and more.
The image of a teenage girl shot and killed is becoming a symbol that is helping to chip away at not just the legitimacy of one election, but the government's entire claim of legitimacy and it has emboldened demonstrators to chants of "death to the ayatollah."
While some top clerics are blaming the West for these violent protests, which they say are creating anarchy, others wish that President Obama would give the Iranian people more support. Remember Obama's speech in Cairo last month? He said various rights we possess are "not just American ideas, they are human rights, and that is why we will support them everywhere."
"Support" doesn't have to mean sending in tanks and troops or dropping bombs. But where is Obama's public support for the Iranian people who are fighting for freedom?
International backing has proved to be the tipping point to freedom time and time again: In Georgia, Indonesia, Nicaragua, Panama, the Philippines, South Africa and Taiwan — just to name a few.
And remember Poland in 1989? It was Ronald Reagan calling out the "evil empire" and supporting the movement in Poland that eventually led to Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall.
On the other hand, a lack of support can prove to be the death knell for protesters, who come to feel the cause is already lost. That's what happened in Tiananmen Square 20 years ago this month and in Prague back in 1969.
The United States of America stands for freedom — period. That means we unabashedly support those who crave it. So while the Iranian people take to the streets to risk their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor for a chance at freedom, it's the silence from thousands of miles away in Washington that is most telling of all.
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