420743239aa58210VgnVCM100000e56411acRCRDapproved/thenational/Articles/Migration/2009-Q4Iranian solution must come from within320743239aa58210VgnVCM100000e56411ac____Five years after promising to take "the oil money to people's dinner tables", Mr Ahmadinejad is facing a vociferous opposition to his once-feted grassroots campaign.<p>When students marched on Tehran University in 1953 to protest the overthrow of Mohammad Mossaddegh, their chants were directed at the tyranny of foreign power. "Iran's oil is ours" and "death to the Shah" they shouted, protesting the arrival of the then US vice-president Richard M Nixon, whose government had helped to replace Iran's elected leader and install the autocratic rule of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.</p> <p>Fifty-six years to the day, students gathering at the same campus once again chanted against tyranny, but this time, there was no external government to blame. Indeed, even as the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his coterie of hardliners struggle to pin the blame of Iran's post-election unrest onto foreign powers such as Britain and the United States, the accusations of protesters remain firmly rooted in the disappointment they have with their own government.</p> <p>"What happened to the oil money? It was spent on the Basij." Witnesses also report students chanting: "This government is fascist, it must stop at some point." Through their statements, the disillusionment of Iran's youth with the Islamic regime is clear. Despite Iran's economic efforts in the past three decades - which have included subsidising food, medicine and fuel - Iran's frustrated populace seems concerned with more than just these basic necessities. Five years after promising to take "the oil money to people's dinner tables", Mr Ahmadinejad is facing a vociferous opposition to his once-feted grassroots campaign.</p> <p>Political and social freedom, as well as anti-corruption efforts aimed at the pervasive influence of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, have been further trumpeted after Iran's June elections, in which Mr Ahmadinejad won a dubious landslide victory over his reformist rival, Mir Hossein Mousavi. And while Mr Mousavi himself has not outlined a set platform as dissent continues and the protesters themselves have not articulated a definitive list of demands, they are clearly arguing for change.</p> <p>That change must come from within. But such a desire, as history shows, is no short-term project. Guns, tear gas and the images of bleeding protesters can only be maintained for so long before the slow-turning wheels of government grind to a halt as the dissatisfaction of the people mounts. And while Iran's leadership may point the finger at meddlesome outsiders as it struggles to maintain control, it's accusations are unfounded. It knows full well what the outside world has observed: that this political movement is wholly Iranian; and so too must be its conclusion.</p> 84YYOPINION2009120900000020091209000000100ARhttp://adedit.ad.atl.publicus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091209/OPINION/712089954571208995420091209100000000