We knew it would turn ugly, but on the other hand, we couldn’t not go. Someone has got to go and if it isn’t us, then who is it?

It was December 2009, and Negar had gone to Iran with her parents to visit friends and extended family.  Negar (who, for security reasons, will be referred to by first name only) attends The University of Texas at Austin, and hadn’t been in Iran since before the hotly contested presidential election last June.  At that time, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared victory with 62.6 percent of the vote, prompting challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi and his supporters to take to the streets in protest.

The world watched for the next week as riot police and the Basij, a paramilitary group, used batons and tear gas against the demonstrators, many of whom were under the age of 30. These protests launched the Green Movement, which began as a symbol of Mousavi’s campaign, but soon became a national symbol of unity and hope for those crying out for annulment of what they still regard as a fraudulent election.

“The ‘election’ of Ahmadinejad was disillusioning to say the least,” Negar explained. “It was the end of an era but also the beginning of a new one. For many this is the beginning of a long path of resistance, but also for many, Iran is no longer a place to think about their future.”

Roughly 60 percent of the Iranian population is Generation Y, making it one of the youngest nations in the world. Despite their demographical dominance, however, young adults have struggled to maintain stable lives even before the recent protests began.

“The Iranian youth are desperate. Their social freedoms are very limited. The unemployment rate is skyrocketing, and their university diplomas seem useless in the great ‘brain drain,’” she said. “Their sense of insecurity and uncertainty defines the lives of the younger Iranian generation.”

But she emphasizes that harsh times are not enough to temper a livid and destitute youth. If anything, these setbacks are their driving force—not including what Negar believes to be an inherent will to fight and survive.

“The Iranians born in the 1980s and 70s are the Children of War. Living through the Iran-Iraq war, their childhood memories are tainted with Iraqi missiles hitting their cities, sirens and martyrdom. The trauma of war has prepared them for this.”

And the Iranian youth are holding up to their legacy, showing no signs of political reprieve—chanting, “We are the Children of War. Fight and we’ll fight back.”  They seem to carry the weight of Iran on their shoulders.

Before the presidential election, Iranian Gen Yers, like most 20-somethings everywhere, understood the usefulness of social media to reach out across communities and connect with others. But since the protests started, their use of social media has taken on a deeper significance. With the new technology, the younger generation has taken over the reins for reporters, becoming citizen journalists at a time when Iranian authorities have placed severe restrictions on the presence of foreign independent media.

“To a large extent,” Negar said, “the movement’s organization is delegated to the young people, who use text messages, social networking, Twitter, blogs, YouTube, and other web technologies to show the demonstrations and the injustices.

“This is what makes this movement so unique,” she continued. “Even though Mousavi and [Mehdi] Karoubi  [the most liberal of Ahmadinejad’s opponents in the presidential election] are the faces of the Green leadership, the movement isn’t centered around them at all. Were they to surrender, the movement would still go on.”

And on it goes. Today, opponents to Iran’s current regime continue to gather, speak out, and protest, despite the risks of imprisonment, injury, or death. Just five months ago, thousands of Iranians attended the funeral for Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, 87, who was one of the leaders of the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Skirmishes broke out among the attendees and police. Six days later, on the Muslim holy day of Ashoura, protesters and riot police clashed in multiple locations in Tehran, leaving many injured and between 8 and 37 protesters killed, including the nephew of opposition leader Mousavi.

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And Monday’s decision by the Guardian Council, a 12-member panel of Shiite Muslim clerics and jurists who oversee elections and certify results, to validate a landslide victory for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hasn’t quelled the rioting. In response, Mousavi posted a message on his Web site on Wednesday, urging his supporters to keep working for the rights of the people in a peaceful way, without engaging in bloodshed.

Meanwhile, it’s been reported that clashes between demonstrators and security forces have caused at least 20 deaths since the contested election results were announced on June 12. The government has detained and/or arrested about 2,000 people, several of them opposition leaders and members of the press. Social networking sites Twitter and Facebook, which have played major roles in reformists’ communication, have been repeatedly shut down.

In the midst of the unrest in Iran, people around the world have been looking to the U.S. government for its reaction. So far, responses by officials and experts have been quite divergent. Only the split isn’t along the traditional Democratic/Republican lines. President Obama has voiced “deep concerns about the election,” but believes that direct involvement by the U.S. would not be “productive, given the history of U.S.-Iranian relations,” which has often been strained.

On the other hand, Obama’s former rival, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), has criticized the president’s non-intrusive stance, saying that he instead “should speak out that this is a corrupt, flawed sham of an election.” Further, “[T]he Iranian people have been deprived of their rights.” But not all Republicans support McCain’s position. Richard Lugar of Indiana, the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, supports Obama’s hands-off approach. Henry Kissinger, who served as secretary of state under Richard Nixon, said in an interview on Fox News he too thinks Obama has taken the “proper position.”

So what should America do? Should we meddle in Iran’s political affairs like international policemen or should we ignore the chants for justice by the Iranian people? Well let’s take a look at who those chants are intended to influence. The Iranian people are calling on their own government, not the U.S. government, to re-evaluate the results of their presidential election. Protesters are rallying to publicly condemn their own political and religious leaders who they believe are complicit in election fraud.

Of course, American citizens don’t need an official U.S. statement before they can support or ignore the cause of the Iranian protesters. It’s like Obama said: “The Iranian government must understand that the world is watching.” His statement has proven true, as thousands of people around the world have rallied to show support for the Iranian protesters who have put their lives on the line in hopes of political reform.

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1. Rebellion in Iran

The unrest continues today, as demonstrators continue to rally in the country’s capital in defiance of a government ban against protesting the election results. Mousavi, who earlier declared himself the true winner of the presidential race, has told supporters he would run again should a new election be called.

The possibility isn’t so fantastical, as Iran’s supreme religious and political leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, backtracked on his earlier edict for opposition leaders to support Ahmadinejad as the election outcome was a “divine assessment.” Now, he is ordering officials to look into the fraud allegations.

But Ahmadinejad is not without his supporters, as tens of thousands of them took part in a victory rally on Sunday, where they heard the president dismiss the complaints, saying elections in Iran had never been healthier.

It seems this election has unleashed anger in many Iranians, particularly the younger ones. Almost 60 percent of Iran’s 70 million citizens are younger than 28. With unemployment topping 30 percent by some accounts, the youth are unhappy with Ahmadinejad’s response to the economy. They believe that Mousavi represents a real departure from the current regime in addressing the economy as well as other issues. While the president calls the Holocaust a myth, Mousavi has condemned the killing of Jews. While Ahmadinejad forces women to cover their hair in public, Mousavi has pledged his support for women’s rights.

In response to the current unrest, authorities have jammed text messages, blocked pro-Mousavi Web sites and Facebook, and cut off mobile phones in Tehran. Thankfully there’s Twitter. The social networking site has been instrumental in helping voices on the ground reach the outside world. An aggregator for real-time updates on Iranian-related tweets can be found here.

Amid the chaos and turmoil, President Obama has taken a “wait and see” approach. On Sunday, Vice President Biden told NBC News that there were “real doubts” about the announced results, but said the administration would “withhold comment until we have a thorough review of the whole process and how they react in the aftermath.”

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1. Rebellion in Iran: U.S. response