Iran's pro-democracy students, among the strongest backers of President Mohammad Khatami, have been sacrificed to a mainstream reform movement that values its seat at the table of power more than profound political change.
After patiently enduring two years of unrelenting pressure - from attacks by police and hardline vigilantes to suppression of their favourite newspapers and even serial murder of dissident intellectuals - many students had had enough.
But when the inevitable crisis came, the man the students looked to as their leader and saviour was nowhere in sight. "Khatami, where are you? Your students have been killed," chanted the crowds.
Their champion inside the system appeared to abandon them. Unable to control the pace or direction of events, the main pro-Khatami student movement washed its hands of the whole affair.
Moderate newspapers, another key component of the Khatami coalition, called for calm without reporting the grievances of students who had taken the slogans of the reform movement - freedom, the rule of law and civil society - at face value.
By yesterday, the pro-democracy students were left isolated, the only major players in this drama to boycott a national unity rally in support of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the system of Islamic rule.
There was throughout the week no real gesture towards student demands. In fact, assaults on them only mounted, ending in a commando-style raid to force them from their campus that paved the way for Tuesday's explosion of rage in the streets.
It remains unclear what stayed the hand of a man elected with the overwhelming support of students, intellectuals and women. Was it a failure of leadership, or lack of political courage?
Or perhaps it was an acknowledgement that even a President with 70 per cent of the popular vote has little control over events in the Islamic Republic, where most of the levers of state power lie with the clerical establishment.