Is the Iranian Regime More Irrational Than it was Last Week?

Ezra Klein has copped some stick for his observation that:

There are a couple things to say about this, all of them depressing. First, those of us who have long argued for the fundamental rationality of the Iranian regime have seen our case fundamentally weakened. A rational regime might have stolen the election. But they would not have stolen it like this, where there is no doubt of the theft.

I a) disagree with Ezra and b) think he’s being too hard on himself. That is, there is a difference between the rationality of the Iranian regime’s foreign policy and its attitude towards domestic dissent. One can believe that Iran is capable of a rational approach to the implications of its nuclear ambitions while also thinking it capable of behaving irrationally in the face of an internal, domestic threat to its legitimacy. I see no obvious or necessary contradiction between these two things.

Like pretty much everyone else, I don’t pretend that I understand what’s happening in Iran, but it’s hard not to think that the authorities were taken by surprise by both the initial vote and then the opposition’s determination to make its voice heard.