If there was an attempted color revolution it failed

Over at Moon of Alabama, the main blogger is suspicious about Mousavi's sudden return to politics and his indirect ties to the US. And even more than that, his announcement before the polls closed not only that he won, but that if he lost that proved election fraud. Which is actually outrageous behavior.

I'm intrigued by one of his links:

The head of the Civil Society Against Corruption in Kyrgystan is Tolekan Ismailova, who organized the translation and distribution of the revolutionary manual used in Serbia, Ukraine and Georgia written by Gene Sharp, founder of a curiously-named Albert Einstein Institution in Boston. Sharp's book, a how-to manual for the color revolutions is titled ‘From Dictatorship to Democracy.’ It includes tips on nonviolent resistance -- such as ‘display of flags and symbolic colors’ -- and civil disobedience.

Sharp’s book is literally the bible of the Color Revolutions, a kind of ‘regime change for dummies.’ Sharp created his Albert Einstein Institution in 1983, with backing from Harvard University. It is funded by the US Congress’ NED and the Soros Foundations, to train people in and to study the theories of ‘non-violence as a form of warfare.’ Sharp has worked with NATO and the CIA over the years training operators in Burma, Lithuania, Serbia, Georgia, Ukraine to Taiwan, even Venezuela and Iraq.

In short virtually every regime which has been the target of a US-backed soft coup in the past twenty years has involved Gene Sharp and usually, his associate, Col. Robert Helvey, a retired US Army intelligence specialist. Notably, Sharp was in Beijing two weeks before student demonstrations at Tiananmen Square in 1989. The Pentagon and US intelligence have refined the art of such soft coups to a fine level. RAND planners call it ‘swarming,’ referring to the swarms of youth, typically linked by SMS and web blogs, who can be mobilized on command to destabilize a target regime.

Iran's blocking of SMS and web access may be in indication that Iran is consciously countering publicly known "color revolution" destabilization tactics. My guess is that any threat to the regime from attacks on the legitimacy of the vote are subsiding by now.

Until information is released indicating that, I have no reason to believe a program of destabilizing the Iranian regime beginning with youth protests had been attempted. I do think Iran's government is aware of the possibility and acting to prevent it.

I expect the protests to die down. Any damage to Iran's legitimacy will be minimal, and most likely there will not be any at all. For now I believe Mousavi, in the heat of the moment, believed that votes were being stolen from him and acted as any politician would. The idea that he was working with foreigners is too far fetched for me to assign any possibility to it before I see some direct evidence.