Buoyed by the Iranian Parliament’s demand for the prosecution of two prominent leaders of the opposition movement, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad expressed confidence on Tuesday that the mass demonstrations are going to fail. On Monday Iran witnessed antigovernment protests after a year.

It is reported that nearly 20,000-30,000 people took to the streets in protest in Iran, including the capital Tehran. Two student leaders have lost their lives in the demonstrations.

The mass movements started after the last elections. President Ahmadinejad, who holds on to power despite allegations of a rigged re-election, claims that these are the machinations of foreign nations to destroy a great nation. But mass opposition leader Karroubi predicts the uprising in Iran will go Tunisia and Egypt way where the oppressive rulers have been forced to flee.

Karroubi says that the government must remove cotton from the ears and listen to the people’s voice. He strongly believes that oppression works only up to a point and history is proof of that.

Though a number of opposition members have been prosecuted, the government has not dared to prosecute the two prominent mass leaders Mir Hussein Moussavi and Mehdi Karroubi fearing wide spread unrest.

American President Barrack Obama has lauded the courage of the Iranian demonstrators and criticized the Iranian government’s response to the demonstrations. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton denounced the use of the Internet by the Iranian government to hunt down critics.

The opposition leaders like Karroubi do not have any future plans, but he is hopeful that the street demonstrations would overhaul the government and unseat not just Ahmadinejad, but also the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.