Iranian Protesters Capture Police Station

Another thing you never really saw last June: Iranian protesters not only successfully beating back the police and the basij, but even capturing a small police station.

In this Wall Street Journal blog entry, the events of this video are dispassionately given. However, in this five minute long cell phone video, you'll see all sorts of random but telling images:

Note the two wounded and stunned security officers being led out of the building to safety so they don't get injured more seriously. Note the police helmet bounced across the square as casually as if it was a soccer ball. Note the joy that erupts when a fire is set next to the police station.

There's something very weird going on in Tehran and I'm increasingly getting the feeling that democracy and the demand for it is gradually taking a back seat to this carnage. About the only redeeming feature that I can see in this video is the mercy instantly extended to their injured and incapacitated opponents and their willingness to accept into the fold the few Iranian cops who take their side.

Those who are looking to get their votes back are gaining ground yet they're squandering this valuable ground they're gaining, on a Muslim holiday, in petty acts of vandalism. There doesn't seem to be a leader. Mousavi is crying over the body of his nephew. Montazeri is dead. Student leader Mehdi Arabshahi has reportedly been arrested.

Who's calling the shots in the streets?