http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20090615_western_misconceptions_meet_iranian_reality

very comprehensive. though now the story less about the actual election and now about the uprising.
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It amazes me how much attention has been given to whether the Iran vote count was legitimate or whether Ahmedinejad would have won a fair vote. The real story here is government’s cooption of the process that it carefully controlled from the ver…

You have a very large, disorderly mouth. Name one person in American history who has ever said we have a “perfect” society. Just one? Can’t. Your ignorance about America, about the world, about everything is appalling.

Please don’t comment here anymore. You’re racism and bigotry makes people want to throw up.

ed.

Americans desperately WANT ro believe the “reform” candidate lost the election by theft. And how much real reform are you going to get out of a hand-picked candidate vetted by the theocracy before he runs? Our wishful thinking holds that Iran is a ntaion of people just like us who really want democracy, don’t accept terrorism, don’t want the Bomb, hate the current regime and can live side by side with Jews. The thought of tens of millions of Muslim zealots who have hated the US and all it stands for since 1979 is too ugly to think about so we rationalize. I don’t think there is much nuance to “Death to the Great Satan.”

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/06/iran-does-have-some-fishy-numbers.html

The totals just do not add up to historical patterns or even turnout histories from recent elections. If turnout had been 40-50% and he won, I could almost believe that this “Fraud” call was a fraud itself. Instead, turnout was massive (80-85% by most estimates) in a country of youthful people (70% under 30 right?) who have always voted in the past 10-15 years overwhelmingly for reformers and reform elements within the Clerical centers of power.

Another interesting wrinkle is how quick this was compiled in a country where legally there is a 3 day wait on certification of results and whose voting mechanisms are not nearly as developed as our own, let alone a more advanced (in a voting technology and process sense) Western country. That itself screams “fishy”.

I think both men know the real numbers, whatever they may be. Moussavi is too plugged-in not to have a pretty good idea of whether he won. So if he continues disputing it’s because he’s consciously trying to steal the election.

But my money would be on Ahmadinejad as the more likely fraud.