Going All In.

(Image Courtesy of AssociatedContent.com)

I've often seen these people, these squares at the table, short stack and long odds against them. All their outs gone. One last card in the deck that can help them. I used to wonder how they could let themselves get into such bad shape, and how the hell they thought they could turn it around.

-Mike McDermott - "Rounders"

If you were in college, or even late in high school, when "Rounders" premiered in theaters, chances are you caught the poker bug. Soon, every young adult with a few dollars in his pocket and a dream started organizing Friday night poker games, with nothing but a deck of cards and a dream of making it big. The poker explosion today? With TV coverage of the World Series of Poker, poker games televised on multiple channels on multiple days a week, and celebrities entering every poker tournament they can? I think, and I'm not the only one that thinks this, it all started with "Rounders."

In the movie, Poker Philosopher/Law Student/Delivery Truck Driver Mike McDermott (played by Matt Damon) delivers a number of memorable lines. One of which I quoted above. See, poker is a game of forcing someone at your table to make a decision with their chips...you force them to decide whether or not to risk it all. In the quote above, McDermott describes the individual seen at poker tables across the country, probably right now. The player who has seen the game get away from them, and before they know it, they're forced to put everything on the line with just one card, one play, offering them a chance for survival.

In Iran, we have just reached that moment.

This morning, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatullah Ali Khamenei gave a speech. In the speech, Khamenei defined the election results as "definitive," and without fraud. He called on the protesters to stop their protesting, and to accept the results as they currently stand. Further, his speech was not without threats to the protesters:

The street is the place of living and trading. Why are you taking to the streets? We have had the election. Street demonstrations are a target for terrorist plots. Who would be responsible if something happened?

If this were a poker game, Khamenei has just gone all in. He cannot back down now. The protesters have forced his hand, and Khamenei is much like the player at the table McDermott describes: Wondering how in the world he got to this point, and praying the final card that turns over is the only one that can save him.