If you’re waiting for Iran’s hard-line government to collapse and freedom to bloom, have a seat.

This is going to take a while.

The regime in that country is not some teetering shell, ready to be pushed over by mobs of protesting students. It’s an organized, disciplined and brutal entity. It will hold on to power.

Idealists may look at the injustice in Iran, combined with the now-dwindling protests, and conclude that it’s just a matter of time before the good guys come out on top.

But those who hold power are not inclined to give it up. And there are plenty of examples where those in authority manage to persist, despite a lack of wisdom, good judgment and legitimacy.

In fact, it’s the fear of losing power and control that leads to self-defeating harsh actions.

That’s why change is coming to Iran. The only question is: How will that change go, at least in the short term.

It would be nice to think that the massive rallies have given pause to Iran’s Islamic leadership. The huge protests that greeted the country’s (presumably) fixed presidential election might make leaders consider the risks of denying all of those people a legitimate voice in the political process.

Then again, consider the words of one of Iran’s high-ranking clerics, Ayatollah Ahmed Khatami, who declared protest leaders should be punished “without mercy.”

If you’re wondering, that means execution in Iran, whose penchant for capital punishment is second only to China’s.

In short, Iran’s leadership must decide if it’s willing to respect those who believe the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was rigged, and seek accommodation with them, or if it will crush and terrorize this upstart opposition.

I’m inclined to believe the latter. Compromise is not exactly the sort of quality one expects from the Iranian government.

Still, the regime has an image problem, and probably realizes it. Where it was once able to play the victim and blame the “Great Satan” (that’s America, by the way) for its ills, millions of people around the globe have seen the images from Iranian streets. And they are well aware of how the government has sought to clamp down on the free flow of information — only to be thwarted repeatedly by modern technology.

President Obama has kept his responses to the Iranian situation rightly subdued. His critics fail to understand this battle is one the Iranian people must fight. A strong U.S. reaction will play right into the hands of hard-liners hoping to make the U.S. the issue, rather than their own ugly actions.

And Obama’s measured approach will cause future problems for Iran’s ayatollahs. Efforts to silence the opposition through violent means will be noted by the rest of the world. In the Internet and wireless era, governments of educated nations need credibility to sustain themselves.