@ Leauki:

I don't get my news from BBC or Reuters, it would seem. Looking into my local newspaper, the Edmonton Journal, it's affiliated with Canwest. Dunno if they've got their own biases or not, but there you have it.

I've got to wonder about all the things we're not seeing. There's little support going to the Iranian opposition in public (though the French President just today called the whole thing a fraud... good on 'im) though I can't help but wonder what's going on behind the scenes.

And that last link is... pretty unbelievable. Is that REALLY a simplified version of the voting distribution? I find it hard to believe that a regime intent on legitimizing itself would make such an amatuer blunder, and I also can't help but notice that the other candidates are not listed at all.

If that's for real, though, I can't help but laugh at the Iranian government. Apparently being lying, thuggish asshats wasn't sufficient, they also had to be frigging TERRIBLE at it!

...and yeah, checking the official results shows it to be completely inaccurate. I take it that was meant to be taken as a joke? That's a shame... would've been funnier if it was true!

Good for you!

I do believe that local newspapers are probably much better than the big media companies. For one thing, they are less centralised and there are more of them. They also don't have interests beyond their own locality and little reason to prop up dictators in a part of the world they are not likely to report from anyway.

Yes, it actually is. The official results really did claim that Ahmadinejad won evenly in all regions. And given that he "won" by a larger margin than in 2005, when the opposition boycotted the elections, everybody knew that was something fishy with the "results".

The Iranian regime are not very good at this. You have to remember that they really are backwards. They don't know that most people in the west know enough about maths and statistics to spot these things. They also don't know that everyone in the western world knows about Photoshop. (That is, they do know that, but they don't know what it means.)

A year ago the Iranian government released pictures of missile launch test, photoshopped to show four missiles successfully launched, three of them were identical. Presumably getting two of four missles to launch successfully was the best result they could get and they photoshopped from there.

Similarly the rallies supporting Ahmadinejad have been photoshopped:

http://kheirkhah.ir/?type=dynamic&lang=1&id=683

If we are lucky, the Iranian regime won't understand that we get the news mostly from twitter and blogs. They are currently expelling journalists and shutting down press offices. Seems like they are preparing for a major assault on the protesters that they think nobody will see.

This will get a lot worse.

Actually, it was accurate. I don't know how they have changed the results since then.

Friday evening Ahmadinejads votes were indeed shown to be between 65% and 70% no matter which province they counted. That's what the cartoon refers to.

They even claimed that Ahmadinejad got 70% in the Kurdish areas. They are Sunnis. They have absolutely no reason to vote for a president who doesn't even recognise their religion as Islam.

One source for official "results":

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=r_uwMuClOfVIjaQpj8liIpg

They differ from Friday's.

About the ties between Iran and the Arab world:

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/totten/70241

Ahmadinejad anti-Israel rhetoric and his anti-Semitism were meant for external consumption. In Iran he wasn't going to score votes with it. Anti-Semitism only works with losers, but Iranians are not losers.

His anti-western positions are now causing his probable downfall.

http://www.n-tv.de/politik/meldungen/Waechterrat-empfaengt-Opposition-article371140.html (German)

Apparently the "Council of Guardians" will meet with opposition leaders to discuss the situation and what can be done. Note that "Ayatollah" Khameini does not necessarily have the full support of that council, many of whom are unhappy with the situation and Iran's isolation in the world.

In the mean time Mousavi has called on his supporters to continue with peaceful protests until new elections are called.

Protesters in front of the UN building are holding up posters "UN - Where Are You?". They obviously don't know that international support for their cause would make things worse. Luckily President Obama has things under control and is able to withhold such support. I hope he really does know more about the situation in Iran than the people who live there. (George Bush was in a similar situation regarding Lebanon a few years and openly supported the anti-Syrian opposition and it worked out well. He was obviously lucky.)

The pro-regime Bassij militia is calling its volunteers to show up for Friday prayers in mass (and armed).

There are a couple of common misconceptions about Iran which add to the confusion and to why the west doesn't really "get" what happens in Iran.

One is the idea that Iranians are anti-western or anti-Israel or anti-Semitic. They are not. As Michael Totten quotes in the article linked earlier:

Despite the presentation of the Jew by the Khomeinist regime as the ultimate “other” and object of hatred, anti-Semitism has failed to find a wide audience in Iran. Leaving aside what one might call “vulgar anti-Semitism,” there is no evidence that hatred of the Jews has any echoes in contemporary Persian literature or art. Part of this is because the overwhelming majority of Iranian writers, poets, and other “producers of culture” reject Khomeinism as a form of anti-Iranian fascism. The main reason, however, is that the average Iranian, though he may sympathize with the Palestinians, cannot identify with the Arabs, whom he regards as an ancestral foe. The fact that the only major war that Iran has fought in the past three hundred years was started by an Arab nation – Iraq under Saddam Hussein – makes it hard for most Iranians to contemplate an Irano-Arab front against Israel.

...

It is not easy to present Israel as a threat to Iran, let alone a Muslim world of 1.3 billion people. There is no history of enmity between Iranians and Jews. On the contrary, most historical narratives on both sides radiate with genuine warmth and affection. Ancient Persians helped save the Jews from extermination in Babylon. Jews always remained loyal to Iran, fighting and dying for it whenever given an opportunity. Even when Israel was reborn as a state, few Iranian Jews were prepared to choose it over Iran. Iran and Israel do not face any of the problems that set one nation-state against another. There is no border dispute between them. They are not competing over access to rare natural resources or markets. They do not suffer from a collective memory of hatred and war. Any Western visitor to Iran would quickly realize that Iranians do not hate Jews and would not be prepared to sacrifice them for the Arabs. This lack of a popular base for a policy of hatred and war may well prove to be the ultimate check on Ahmadinejad’s messianic illusions.

Quite in contrast to western delusions about Ahmadinejad gaining votes by being anti-Israel, in Iran he is more likely to lose votes for his general anti-western attitude.

The other misconception is about Ahmadinejad being a "man of the people" with lots of support in rural areas. In fact Ahmadinejad's power base was in the cities, exactly where the big demonstrations are happening right now.

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/totten/70412

I think it might be a good idea to consider that the 2005 elections were also rigged.

Truly? They changed the official results afterwards because they realized that they looked like total tools? Huh! I take it back, I AM going to laugh at them. Idiots.

Do you have a source for the original results? I haven't been able to find it, they were apparently quite quick to change everything up before anyone looked too closely.

I'll see if I can find it again. That happened in the first few hours of it all.

I just came back from the synagogue and didn't start taking notes until the morning.

So, I've a question Leauki, do you think that if Moussavi (or down the road another moderate leader) is elected as president of Iran...that this will damage Israel. I mean, think about it, Israel has been (aside from Palestine) reliant upon Iran's rather acidic relations for their hold in the middle east.

Would it be safe to say that the Iran-Israel relationship is somewhat symbiotic?

No. In contrast to leading politicians in Israel and even, apparently, the Mossad I believe it will help Israel.

While I haven't come so far as to believe that Obama's startegy of making nice will bring peace, I do believe that the Iranian people like the west and hate Arab nationalism enough to use every opportunity they have not to attack Israel.

Ahmadinejads anti-Semitism is for Arab consumption, not Iranian voters. Moderate Iranian politicians are more likely to focus on the situation in Iran rather than focus on what is not an embarassment, namely the attempt to project power into the rest of the middle east.

I also don't believe that the election of a reformer will be the end. This will probably lead to the replacement of the supreme leader as well as the president. And ultimately the clerics will become more of an advisory board than a government. Note that most Shia clerics do not support the "supereme leader" and his weird theological positions.

I don't understand what you mean.

Absolutely. And it has been for over 2500 years.

Iran holds the key to peace in the middle east. It is the current regime's support for terrorists that keep the wars going (note that apart from Syria and Hamas, also Sudan is an ally of Iran) and it will be any new regime's openness for the west that will show how useless the conflict is.

Iran has a special place in Judaism. Jews consider Iran the legitimate empire, the only non-Jewish power ever to rule Israel per G-d's will. While the theological point is just opinion, the connection between the two peoples exists.

Iranians are proud and have much to be proud of. And Israel looks up to Iran, to any Iran except the current.

Also note this article by my friend and favourite Iranologist, Doctor Kaveh Farrokh:

http://www.venusproject.com/ecs/aFarrokhArab.html

I'm thinking more in the sense that as long as there is this struggle between Israel and the other Arab nations - Israel will always...have a foot in the door/the upperhand. Think about it:

1. They have one of, if not the best, military in the world - why? They need it because they are sitting in the dog pound.

2. They have the backing of the most powerful nation in the world (for all intents and purposes, thought it is changing)

3. They pretty much dictate things when it comes to the Palestine issue.

If Iran was suddenly friendly, or at least less cold - what next? Syria? Saudi Arabia? Egypt? Will Israel have as much leverage?

Hmm, let me think on it some more and try to explain again later.

~Alderic

Alderic, that doesn't make sense. Israel does not get more powerful the more enemies she has.

Israel don't have the best military because they sit in the dog pound. You are confusing cause and effect. Israel still exists because of its military. But that doesn't mean that Israel's enemies are the reason the military is so good.

As for America's backing going away, I think this war will be a lot more expensive after the next Holocaust. America's support for Israel since the 1970s has meant that the Arabs didn't attack large-scale. If Obama wants to go back to the bigger wars of the 50s and 60s, it will happen. He has the power.

As for who dictates things when it comes to the "Palestinian issue", I think that's pretty much the world community. Who insisted that Israel allow a terrorist group to run the Palestinian Authority? Did Israel insist that Hitler's mufti's nephew run the autonomy administration?

Nevermind, just...nevermind. I'm obviously not going to get my point across.

Yeah, I don't see it either. I can't see a tangible benefit for Israel to be constantly in conflict with everyone else around them. Yes, they're militarily dominant, but that's a natural consequence of being surrounded by enemies: you need to be able to match all of them if you intend to survive. That kind of military dominance isn't particularily valuable if everyone were to become friendly... it's just a money sink that you don't need so much anymore. If Israel had less enemies, I can't see it becoming weaker as a consequence... Israel's standing army might become smaller, but that's a good thing for the nation (if that army isn't required) because it means less money is being spent on security and more on prosperity.

In general, I can't see how having less people who want to shoot you in the face could possibly be a bad thing.

There are apparently no demonstrations in Iran today. The opposition leader announced more demonstrations for tomorrow.

So far the regime has basically ignored the demonstrations and I think we might see the regime survive just because they simply ignore the revolution. (How does a revolution win, anyway?)

There is obviously a split within the regime. Perhaps former president Ayatollah Rafsanjani tries to remove Khameini from power. That wouldn't make much of a difference because Rafsanjani is just as bad:

Europe resolved a great problem – the problem of the Zionist danger. The Zionists, who constituted a strong political party in Europe, caused much disorder there. Since they had a lot of property and controlled an empire of propaganda, they made the European governments helpless. What Hitler and the German Nazis did to the Jews of Europe at that time was partly due to these circumstances with the Jews. They wanted to expel the Zionists from Europe because they always were a pain in the neck for the governments there. This is how this calamity fell upon the Muslims, especially the Palestinians, and you all know this history, more or less.[...]The first goal was to save Europe from the evil of Zionism, and in this, they have been relatively successful.

When college students and young adults get riled it usually points that change is coming.  Like I said above they're going to 'ride the storm out'(just as the 80s REO Speedwagon song goes).  The problem is that college students and young adults usually don't have enough clout to bring change YET this could mean that other people that have clout may have taken note and may begin to be more out spoken.

Also, I like how the Iranian news media is having people admit that they were trained by the U.S to incite the riots and bombings. If Bush was in office, I bet people probably would believe these TV reports and our media probably would be reporting that the U.S government was involved.  Since the U.S. media is so loyal to Obama this false story probably won't make any head way in a very little way the biased media is doing something that is some what good.

Ok, here's the deal:

Mousavi, who has transformed from a loyal conservative to an apparent revolutionary, will now decide whether he wants to continue or not. If he gives up now, he might get out of this alive. If he continues, he knows he will have to win or die. And "win" in that case would mean a revolution.

In the mean time the old Jew-hater Rafsanjani will try to get the "Supereme Leader" replaced. I see this not as a move supporting the opposition but as a move against the idiots who clearly tried to take over the country, namely the "Supreme Leader" and his non-cleric friends around Ahmadinejad. Rafsanjani wants the power with the clerics. Supreme Leader Khameini wants the power with himself and the guards.

If Rafsanjani succeeds, Mousavi will probably die. I am sure Moussavi knows this.

If Khameini succeeds, Mousavi will definitely die (or be convinced to admit that he lost control over demonstrations because the Zionists or green rabbits or whatever started rioting).

Hence Moussavi's only hope for the presidency is a factual regime change.

And for this he needs the support of the entire opposition, those who really support him and those who want regime change. He will have to make concessions to the liberals (i.e. those who like the west). He will have to deal with the economy and will thus need friends who are willing to help. Even if he himself doesn't want it, he will have to make Iran a friend of the west again. It's the only way to save the economy fast enough to stay in power.

I don't know a whole lot about Moussavi. What do you think the chances are that he'll take the risk?

Nobody really knows a lot about him.

I think he is an opportunist. But his wife is an excellent politician. I believe that she is the power behind him. He just wants to be president. If he has the help the cause of freedom to become president, he will. (Although I do think he would not use evil to become president.)

He is basically indifferent towards regime change, just wants to be president. If the regime has to change around him, he'll try to change it. That would make him something between an accidental revolutionary and a secret mover, I guess.

I also think that after his term is over, he will step down, even if he became president through a revolution. To me he seems like an honest opportunist, a winner who is smart enough to let his wife control him. If he wins, he'll be a legend and he will have world-wide influence because everybody will want to be on his good side.

His wife wants freedom for women. She is very smart and a charismatic leader. It is her vision that will make the new Iran, if all goes well.

The big problem at the end might be Rafsanjani, whom the western media celebrate as a "reformer". He is not a reformer. If he intervenes and gets Khameini fired, it will be to stop Khameini's attempt to let the secular revolutionary guards take over the country, not to allow for more freedom. He will do it to save the regime, not to help the opposition.

Let the revolutionary guards take over?

That's what Khameini and Ahmadinejad want.

There are four sides in this:

1. Khameini and Ahmadinejad

They try to take power away from the (other) mullahs and transform Iran into a more aggressive and even more fanatical state. They believe that they will beat the west and have to destroy Israel to go to heaven. They didn't think there would be such a massive backlash from the people.

2. Rafsanjani and the other mullahs

They are trying to keep the regime as it is. They are NOT reformers and Rafsanjani is a violent anti-Semite.

3. Mousavi and his direct allies

They won the elections (or think they do) and don't care about the regime as such, only about the election results. They are willing to overthrow the regime if this is what it takes to make Mousavi president.

4. The rebels

They want regime-change and used the opportunity of Mousavi's open rebellion to support him now that the regime seems to be falling.

The first group have Ahmadinejad's supporters behind them. The other three groups' supporters likely voted for Mousavi.

I read today that Mousavi is "prepared for Martyrdom" or somesuch, and that there was a suicide bombing at a major revolutionary monument that killed three other people. I suspect things are going to get ugly shortly.