After months of rising tension they seem to be asking for a double showdown, sooner rather than later.Since last summer's disputed presidential election, the opposition Green movement, uniting followers of the thwarted candidates with other critics of the conservatives who now dominate the government, has taken advantage of Iran's memorial-saturated Islamic revolutionary calendar.
Yet a budget showdown looms, sooner rather than later.A confrontation looms, too, over Mr Obama's (feeble) proposals on gun control, such as curbs on high-capacity ammunition clips or new checks on gun buyers.
In the past, similar fights over rules have typically been settled through compromise rather than a showdown on the floor.
"Remember that part of what is going on is about the legacy of Abbas, who plans to retire, and acceptance in the General Assembly rather than a showdown with the United States would serve that end," said a senior Israeli official who is involved in some of the discussions suggested.
Rather than forcing a showdown, the military could instead choose to continue to try to divide the demonstrators, hoping that more moderate members will leave the area as they run out of food and water.
It signaled to China that the administration prefers to resolve the dispute diplomatically, rather than force a showdown, but also pressed the case for a change in China's policy, a position advocated by many United States lawmakers in both parties.
Despite the explosive nature of any conflict involving the Berlin airways, competent Western officials in Germany believed tonight that the West was dealing with a new Soviet probing operation rather than with a showdown in the Berlin crisis.
But the program's enduring success resulted largely from the psychological drama and tense situations that were resolved with moral ambiguity rather than with a showdown at high noon.
Hossein Nejabat, a nuclear physicist and a member of parliament close to the Supreme Leader, told me that Motahari naïvely insisted on seeing 2009 as a domestic dispute over an election, rather than as a showdown between the regime and an international conspiracy.
The outcome is likely to be a settlement, rather than a court showdown, mostly because of the long roster of defendants.
