Can I be positive about a fatwa?

Grand Ayatollah Ali Montazeri has issued the most critical clerical statement against the current regime in Iran I think we've heard. While I don't really have a grasp of how much of an impact this should make for the Green Revolution, I am impressed by what he has said:

Reply: "...Clearly, it is not possible to preserve or strengthen the Islamic regime via oppression – which contravenes [the precepts of] Islam. This is because the need for a regime stems [in the first place from the need] to dispense justice and to protect [the people's] rights – that is, to implement the directives of Islam. So how can injustice, oppression and [other] contraventions of Islam possibly [serve to] strengthen or preserve a just Islamic regime?

"A regime that uses clubs, oppression, aggression against [the people's] rights, injustice, rigged elections, murder, arrests, and medieval or Stalin-era torture, [a regime that] gags and censors the press, obstructs the media, imprisons intellectuals and elected leaders on false allegations or forced confessions... – [such a regime] is despicable and has no religious merit...

"The proud people of Iran know very well exactly how authentic [the detainees'] confessions are; they are like [confessions obtained] by fascist and communist regimes. The nation knows that the false confessions and televised interviews were obtained from its imprisoned sons with threats and torture, and that their aim is to cover up the oppression and injustice, and to [present a] distorted [image] of the people's peaceful and legal protest...

"The state belongs to the people. It is neither my property nor yours... When the Shah heard the voice of the people's revolution, it was already too late [for him]. It is to be hoped that the people in charge [today] will not let [themselves] reach the same situation, but will become more amenable to the nation's demands, and as soon as possible...

If one could just pick out the bits about Islam, he's describing real democracy as westerners understand it. The government should exist for the people to serve their needs and belongs to them. If it doesn't do that--they deserve better and have a right to demand it. The government has no right to suppress the people in expressing their legitimate grievance. It's the government that should fear the people, not the other way about. What has done the most to delegitimize the Ahmadinejad regime isn't the "rumor" of a rigged election, nor the protest against it, so much as a response to the outcry about the same that has basically verified that there was something very wrong going on.

This fatwa is issued as a response to the queries from another cleric, Mohsen Kadivar. One of his queries reads as follows:

Query: "Do the great sins listed below, and the [position holders'] insistence on committing them, contravene the 'principle of justice' and lead to the implementation of the 'principle of tyranny?'

"1. Ordering innocent people killed and causing their death;

"2. Ordering and being involved in an armed [campaign] of threats and intimidation, and of beating and wounding innocent people in the streets;

"3. The de facto prevention of senior ayatollahs from fulfilling their religious duty of 'commanding good and prohibiting evil,' by obstructing all reasonable and legal means of non-violent protest;

"4. Denying freedom and imprisoning anyone who acts or advises [others] to act [according to the religious precept of] 'commanding good and prohibiting evil,' and extorting false confessions through pressure;

"5. Censoring media and information…;

"6. Smearing all those who protested [following the elections]... and all those who opposed the position holders, [by calling them] 'mercenaries' and 'spies of foreign [forces]';

"7. [Spreading] lies, false testimony, and false reports on all matters concerning the rights of the public;

"8. Betraying the people's trust;

"9. [Practicing] tyranny, ignoring [the people's] opinion, and disregarding the clerics' counsel and warnings;

"10. Preventing rightful owners [i.e. the people] from taking possession of the common property – [that is,] the nation's destiny;

"11. Insulting Islam and demeaning religion by presenting Islam and the Shi'ia to the world as crude, illogical, aggressive, superstitious, and despotic."

which reminds me of the American Declaration of Independence, with its list of grievances against King George III. Maybe I'm too eager to see parallels, I don't know. But it would really give me satisfaction to find that there is a self-evident truth in the rightness of democracy, whether viewed through the eyes of Enlightenment-era mostly deistic New-Worlders, or the eyes of present-day intellectual Muslims. I just want a reason to be optimistic, even though we've all seen how oppressive the current Iran regime is.