IT'S NOT THE HEAD, IT'S THE BODY:

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's crackdown is destined to fail (Martin Fletcher, 12/31/09, The Australian)

IRAN'S panicking regime is again seeking to suppress the Green Movement by decapitating it. [...]

The tactic will prove as futile now as it did before. It will fail because the opposition is a bottom-up movement run by its grassroots members, not Mr Mousavi or Mehdi Karroubi.

"Ahmadinejad, (Ayatollah) Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guards still don't get it," said one Iranian academic. "The Green Movement is a decentralised popular front run by local cells across the country. The main opposition figures do not control it. They are spiritual leaders, but do not provide direction."