Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi have asked the Interior Ministry, which is controlled by an acolyte of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, to allow for a march at Tehran’s Azadi Square on Feb. 14 in support of the Egyptian uprising and the Tunisian revolution.

Iran’s hard-line authorities won’t approve a permit for the march, especially at the same site where up to 3 million anti-government protesters staged a rally on June 15, 2009.

These days, only rallies by supporters of the Iranian government, often bused in and handed free food, are allowed.

But the audacity of the request suggests how the political contagion wending its way through the Arab world may affect Iran, a non-Arab Muslim country that nonetheless maintains strong connections to its neighbors.