To say that President Barack Obama’s response to the Iranian opposition movement has been tepid might be a bit of an understatement. But suppose he does assume a Reagan style posture, and uses his lofty pulpit as leader of the free world to fan the flames of opposition. Would the protesters, electrified by U.S. support, be ready to confront a regime that’s perfectly comfortable leaving their bodies in the Persian streets?

Openly supporting Iran’s democratic movement is only half the battle. They need to be disciplined, well supplied, and — amongst their upper echelons — tightly regimented. Assuming that the United State has only two vectors of attack here, military or diplomatic, is fallacious. We can start treating the Iranians like we treated other proxy actors during the Cold War. Instead of bullets and bombs, we send gizmos and gadgets — laptops with encrypted satellite uplinks, radio broadcasting equipment, even iPods and GPS trackers. When an unarmed civilian is gunned down on the street, a video of the brutality should be hot on the internet within minutes. And we shouldn’t assume that violence is unavoidable — training these guys in both passive and active resistance, how to deal with the Mullah’s violent militia groups, and how to hit back as a disciplined entity can help level the playing field.