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Iranian police stand guard Tuesday outside the British Embassy in Tehran during a protest.

Christiane Amanpour | BIO
CNN International Correspondent

Despite his threat of "bloodshed," and the subsequent beatings and shooting deaths by government agents, the open protests on Iran's streets by hundreds of thousands of people have dented the shield of invincibility of Iran's Supreme religious Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, say sources in Iran. Chants of "Death to Khamenei" broke a state-imposed and self-imposed absolute prohibition on criticizing a leader believed to be wielding the wisdom and authority of God himself.

Right now, the massive network of Iran's intelligence agents, Revolutionary Guard, paramilitary Basij, and police of all sorts, are cracking down. Sources say they are also going house to house, through email accounts and web postings, through cell phone calls and SMS text messages (when the system is allowed to stay up) and even to taxi agencies whose drivers hoisted Moussavi posters during the election campaign. They are rounding people up and, as it was chillingly put to me, in Iran's prisons "we have room for all of them."

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Christiane Amanpour | BIO
CNN International Correspondent

Iran's supreme leader delivered an impassioned defense of the Islamic Republic on Friday, insisting a majority of Iranians had faith in the existing establishment and issuing a "religious ultimatum" to protesters to end days of street demonstrations triggered by last week's presidential election.

Addressing a large crowd at Tehran University, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the historic voter turnout of 85 percent legitimized the Islamic system and had been a clear demonstration of the Iranian people's trust in the regime.

He rejected suggestions that fraud or cheating had been involved in President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election, pointing out that the 11-million vote difference between Ahmadinejad and his principal opponent, Mir Hossein Moussavi, was too large to have been manipulated by vote-rigging.

Khamenei then directly addressed the people on the streets, telling them it was time to end their protests and pursue their grievances through the Guardian Council, which has already said it will recount some of the votes.