AHMADINEJAHD WINS AGAIN!!!!

This is good news although I imagine it means dire consequences for some of the gutsy Iranians taking to the streets.

What are the chances Mousavi will remain a free man by the end of the weekend.

Hopefully our government has the means to support the opposition and is willing to employ them.

At the very least, the blatantly hamfisted manipulation of the election plus any violent crackdown on protesters will make it a little more difficult for our European allies to resist our efforts to squeeze Iran --- assuming the current administration hasn't given up on those efforts.

fr0m HuffPo -
Mousavi (sp) under house arrest..

Uh oh.

5 to 4 is not the same thing as 50-50

Had it been 5 to 4, Gore would have won. The entire incident occurred because the vote was exceptionally close. If you wish to assert any other set of facts, post evidence.

May I remind you, Gore got a half million more votes than Bush did.

Well, I was really referring to electoral votes, which is how we do elections in this country. Anyway, just for the record, that is hardly 5 to 4. In fact, it's 47.87% to 48.38%.

If by "US politics" you mean the Bush v Gore race in 2000, I agree completely, although you'll note that not every participant in this thread has joined in on that tired and irrelevant argument.

I would argue, however, that it is perfectly appropriate to discuss this event within a context of American politics as well as Iranian and international politics.

Re: MontereyJack (Post 3676543)
MontereyJack wrote:

May I remind you, Gore got a half million more votes than Bush did.
Brandon 9000 replied:
Well, I was really referring to electoral votes, which is how we do elections in this country. Anyway, just for the record, that is hardly 5 to 4. In fact, it's 47.87% to 48.38%.
*****************************
Brandon 9000- the left will not get over the fact that the Election of 200o was ratified in the House of Representives which indicated that Bush was the new president.

And, as far as the canard that the Supreme Court elected Bush goes, the left is ignorant of the findings of the LEFT WING New York Times which was involved in a long and rigorous study in Florida with other newspapers and organizations after Bush was elected.

Now, Brandon 9000, I have never seen the left wing rebut the following. It leaves them speechless( especially since it is from the New York Times)

Study of Disputed Florida Ballots Finds Justices Did Not Cast the Deciding Vote
By FORD FESSENDEN and JOHN M. BRODER
Published: Monday, November 12, 2001
Acomprehensive review of the uncounted Florida ballots from last year's presidential election reveals that George W. Bush would have won even if the United States Supreme Court had allowed the statewide manual recount of the votes that the Florida Supreme Court had ordered to go forward.

Contrary to what many partisans of former Vice President Al Gore have charged, the United States Supreme Court did not award an election to Mr. Bush that otherwise would have been won by Mr. Gore. A close examination of the ballots found that Mr. Bush would have retained a slender margin over Mr. Gore if the Florida court's order to recount more than 43,000 ballots had not been reversed by the United States Supreme Court.

Even under the strategy that Mr. Gore pursued at the beginning of the Florida standoff ? filing suit to force hand recounts in four predominantly Democratic counties ? Mr. Bush would have kept his lead, according to the ballot review conducted for a consortium of news organizations.

But the consortium, looking at a broader group of rejected ballots than those covered in the court decisions, 175,010 in all, found that Mr. Gore might have won if the courts had ordered a full statewide recount of all the rejected ballots. This also assumes that county canvassing boards would have reached the same conclusions about the disputed ballots that the consortium's independent observers did. The findings indicate that Mr. Gore might have eked out a victory if he had pursued in court a course like the one he publicly advocated when he called on the state to "count all the votes."

In addition, the review found statistical support for the complaints of many voters, particularly elderly Democrats in Palm Beach County, who said in interviews after the election that confusing ballot designs may have led them to spoil their ballots by voting for more than one candidate.

Finn D' Abuzz wrote:(regarding Ahmnadinejad's opponent)

Hopefully our government has the means to support the opposition and is willing to employ them.
end of quote
I wish you were right, Finn D'Abuzz, but I think that Obama's vision of foreign policy is one in which "jawboning" is the only weapon.

Obama hasnt engaged in the back and forth with Ahme, that Bush had employed. That frustrates Ahme , maybe that is good for the dialogue.

The policy of the Bush admin was actually responsible for this impasse with Iran. If we recall, right after 9/11 , Iran was solidly in our camp because they were already busy fighting Al Quaeda.. When Bush opened his idot mouth and declared Iran part of an "Axis of Evil", Iran exercised its own nationalistic focus, and basically told Bush to go **** himself. Weve been living that ever since. Weve been used to a gret satan speech from one of the clerics which would be followed by a mollifying speech from the "executive branch" . That stopped when the Axis of Evil **** started.
Stupid national policy has always reigned in the US. It didnt start with Bush, hes was only the latest prctitioner.

Finn, I agree that it would be super to discuss this topic in terms of what actually transpired on the international scene and keep the jingo talk for another thread.

I was listening to CBC St Johns this AM and they have an entirely different sourcing on the election. It appears that the turnout , being as heavy as it was, should have favored Mousavi but didnt. Why?, the military vote was almost 90% for Ahmedinejahd .THere were similar pockets of heavy support for Ahme and these may have accounted for the plurality.

Also, the unsanctioned harangue that Ahme gave in the hours just before the election("Will he be fined for this illegal act?", asked the CBC) did it have any effect, ?who knows. IMHO,YA cant really rig an election with such a turnout by that hevy a plurality.

I don't see any reason why the United States has any business trying to "squeeze" Iran. Something it seems many Americans are unable or unwilling to see is that there are just some things, many things, which are beyond the reach of our influence, and beyond the threat of our military power. The internal affairs of Iran are such an area, up to and including their nuclear program.

I'm not so sure about rigging an election. Ahmadinejad's eleventh hour (illegal) harangue about Zionist influences strongly suggest that he was desperate, and the Persians have been pretty scrupulous about observing the terms of their constitution. That the new constitution is "revolutionary" and runs true to what the Mullahs define as the values of Shi'ism doesn't alter that it has provisions for legality, which Ahmedinejad clearly violated, although the force of the violation is not necessarily enough to invalidate the election.

For many years, the clerics could rely on the fact that most Persians remembered the Iran-Iraq War, and many remembered the revolution. But it has now been 20 years since that war ended, and 30 years since the revolution. A great many of the younger generations of Persians barely remember those events, or don't remember them at all, some few even born after those events had ended. The clerics can no longer rely upon either enthusiasm or fear. The population of Iran is intelligent, and even within the context of the death grip the Mullahs have on business and finance, relatively affluent and up-t0-date with the technology of communications in the 21st century. They (the clerics) will undoubtedly get away with this one, if this really is a stolen election. However, the 7th century ethos of the clerics will become increasingly alienated from the lives of the "Persian in the street," and in the future, it will become increasingly difficult to keep a lid on the expectations of young Persians. The day may not be far off when, in order to keep their grip on power, the Mullahs become just like the Shah's regime, with the Revolutionary Guard filling the role of the SAVAK.

I am reminded of the old Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times."

Meaningful change will only take if its evolutionary. I think that economics will ultimately prevail . The NYT was giving its two cents in the fact that Mousavi had been, although a nicer face and friendlier front to the West, was still a stunch supporter of the nuclear dreams for their country. I suppose that, absent a world policy where only "good nations" have the bomb, its probably just as wise to have EVERYBODY armed with Armegeddon. Im sure that Kimmy wouldnt be so damn bellicose if Japan had a Thermonuclear bomb.
"Shut up Kimmy or well shove this little bad boy into your Wal Mart capital building."

Back to Iran, I always have been surprised at the amount of all the "committees" that have authority in Iran.

What i see as the problem of some on the right in the United States is the failure to recognize that we simply can't prevent other nations from getting the bomb. You know, when the Israelis bombed the Iraqi reactor at Osirak, Saddam Hussein had only been in power for a few years. Whether or not he personally or the Ba'ath Arab Socialist Party in general had wanted a nuclear program, that action convinced him that he should pursue one. It also would have given him the power to silence any opposition within his own party against it, and would have strengthened his hold on power in the Ba'ath Party. Attempting to interfere in Iran with things which in reality we cannot prevent, cannot change, could well have this same opposite effect of encouraging and inspiring what we don't like, and give some power leverage to those among the Persians who truly are our dedicated enemies (there is no reason to assume that that is all of them).

The Persian obsession with Israel is completely understandable. In 1952, a naive Eisenhower, spurred on by BP and the English government, joined in sponsoring a coup which overthrew Mohammed Mosedegh, the legally elected prime minister of Iran, because he threatened to nationalize the petroleum industry, and was already busily engaged in clipping the Shah's political wings. Having successfully engineered the coup, the idiots at Central Intelligence and MI6 brought in Israelis from Mossad to set up the new Persian secret police, the SAVAK. The older generation of Persians haven't forgotten that, and certainly haven't forgiven that, and i have no doubt that it is taught in the schools.

Every act of interference in the affairs of any other sovereign nation is going to be resented, whether or not successful. You can bet that there are many Iraqis, probably literally millions, who still hate the United States, even if they are arguably better off now than they were ten years ago. Interference and threats and saber-rattling are stupid, and not only not productive, they are very likely counter productive. Engagement can and often has succeeded.

Of course, we shall see what we shall see.

The thing that we must keep sight of is that the middle East is first pissed at every one else in the middle east. They are their own worst enemies, and soon as we learn to develop an ala carte approach to each , rather tha n having a "one size fits all" policy then we can be a more effective part of the dialogue.

That's a very intelligent observation. The Turks, for example, never tried to make the all those clowns get along--and they played them off against one another to make it that much easier to keep their grip of the territory.

Smart thinkin' there, FM . . . too bad nobody in government here has that much sense.

Right, it's not that Ahmedinejahd is an extremist maniac, it's all George Bush.

If you recall, Ahmedinejad wasnt president during the 9/11 years. Khatami was. Khatami was probably the most conciliatory of presdienets of the revolution and , in many areas, he was rebuffed by both the US and his own groups like the Guardian Council and the Assembly of experts.
WE REBUFFED the Iranians in any discussions that Khatami presented about nukes. SO, in effect, we sow and reap.

I never had much respect for Bush's foreign policies except to have served as a BAD EXAMPLE. So , in that respect, I guess I owe Bush a pat on the back . By George being GEORGE, Obama has been able to better understand where thye mistakes were occuring.

Anyone who thinks that Ahmedinejad, or Rafsanjani, or anyone else is actually the ruling head of state of Iran is so naive as to be beneath debate.

Well, all economic issues lay back onto the president . AND, also by their constitution, Ahmedinejad gets no more terms so any real economic reform wont be forthcoming in this term.Like Ravsanjani he will probably become some committee head like the Guardians or the "Experts" or the beloved Council of Expediency.

kahtami, because he shook hands with the ISraeli PM, heads no powerful Muhla committee or any Twelver agency.

My point, however, is that Ahmadinejad is not a ruling head of state. The Supreme Leader makes all the big decisions, and the Guardian Council decides policy. For our purposes, as foreign observers, Ahmedinejad is simply the public face of the Persian government. He does not decide policy for the nation of Iran.