Iranian Elections

[Ice]

Yep. This isn't the West's fight. A solely Iranian revolution is needed.

Yup... I would be rioting too if I were an Iranian. Living under a theocracy is bullcrap.

[Kadagar_AV]

Doesn't it speak a LOT about the US view on the world when there's even a discussion of "do something about it or not".

Why would you meddle in a sovereign states internal affairs?

[Lemur]

I'm sorry Kadgar, I didn't realize that you woke up on the self-righteous side of the bed this morning. Whe we speak of "doing something," we're mostly talking about pretty tame stuff -- do we recognize the election as legit and congratulate the winner? Do we voice support for the reformers and the students being killed? It's much the same debate every western country is having right now.

But if you'd prefer that we huddle into a self-loathing ball in the corner and shut up if we know what's good for us, well, I'll take it under advisement.

[KukriKhan]

Doesn't it speak a LOT about the US view on the world when there's even a discussion of "do something about it or not".

Why would you meddle in a sovereign states internal affairs?

Count Arach is Australian, not US.

However, to your point: no need to meddle, and doing so would likely be counter-productive; I, for one, just want to figure out and plan for whoever will be the next guy we have to deal with to slow down or prevent Iran's nuclear war-making abilities.

[Kadagar_AV]

I'm sorry Kadgar, I didn't realize that you woke up on the self-righteous side of the bed this morning. Whe we speak of "doing something," we're mostly talking about pretty tame stuff -- do we recognize the election as legit and congratulate the winner? Do we voice support for the reformers and the students being killed? It's much the same debate every western country is having right now.

But if you'd prefer that we huddle into a self-loathing ball in the corner and shut up if we know what's good for us, well, I'll take it under advisement.

I know most talk about tame stuff... i was refering to those fingering the trigger already :)

Kukrikahn, it goes for the whole western world :)
Although the US admitedly ace that attitde.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

I don't see a problem with interfering, especially if the people want the USA to. On the other hand, it looks like that will be counterproductive if we try it now, so in this case it might be best to take a step back and watch what is happening.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

I don't see a problem with interfering,

There's these people, they call themselves Republican Guards or something silly like that. But they got sharp sticks and a bad attitude, and that counts as a problem in my book.

[KarlXII]

I'll just throw in a saying my father told me,

"Absolute power corrupts absolutely"

[Lemur]

Things we civilians can do to help:

Set up a proxy for Iranians to get around government censorship

Change your Facebook page to green, adding this image as your profile

(I'll admit, the second one is kind of dopey, but it's what some of the Iranian students have been asking for, and twenty-year-olds facing down guns don't have a big sense of irony.)

[KarlXII]

Things we civilians can do to help:

Set up a proxy for Iranians to get around government censorship

Change your Facebook page to green, adding this image as your profile

(I'll admit, the second one is kind of dopey, but it's what some of the Iranian students have been asking for, and twenty-year-olds facing down guns don't have a big sense of irony.)

Changed mine to green

[Lemur]

Good post at AmCon for those who think our Prez should dig in and get involved:

The President of the United States is not and must not be seen as a partisan in the elections of other nations. No matter the party and no matter the country, their cause is not and cannot be the same as his. [...] It would be seen as an attempt to use worldwide sympathy for the movement in question to bolster himself politically while doing absolutely nothing for the people with whom he supposedly sympathizes. It would give the regime the pretext of treating Mousavi as an American lackey. They may do this in any case, but Washington need not enable or provide justification for this. The administration’s wait-and-see approach is the right one.

-edit-

Tried to change the background color in Facebook. Epic fail.

This liveblog thread at HuffPo seems to have the most up-to-date information from the most sources.

[Lemur]

Time has a decent article indecently spread over six pages. Here's the text:

Was Ahmadinejad's Win Rigged?

Iran's Interior Ministry announced Saturday that incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had won 63.29% of the vote in the country's presidential election — a landslide. But Iran's opposition leader Mir-Hossein Mousavi says he won and that the result had been rigged; Mousavi supporters have taken to the streets in Tehran and other cities to protest the official outcome.

Ahmadinejad, for his part, insists that he won fairly, while Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatullah Ali Khamenei, initially congratulated Iranians for proving their "great worth." The result, Khamenei said, was a "divine assessment." On Monday, though, Khamenei ordered the powerful Guardian Council to investigate the fraud allegations.

So far, Washington has taken a cautious approach to commenting on the election, though a senior U.S. official called the results "not credible" and Vice President Joe Biden told Meet the Press that "there's some real doubt" whether Ahmadinejad actually won. "There's an awful lot of questions about how this election was run," he said. Here are five key questions being raised about the legitimacy of the results.

Was the Voting Properly Supervised?

As always in Iran, this election was run by the Interior Ministry. In each ward, ministry and local government officials and respected local leaders form committees to oversee the election process. Iran's powerful Guardian Council appoints thousands of officials to supervise actual voting at polling stations. Candidates can also send an observer to each polling station to watch the voting and ballot count. However, there are no independent election observers in Iran.

Did the Voting go Smoothly?

Not everywhere. On Friday, the polling day, there were reports that opposition observers were barred from entering some voting stations. Mousavi campaign officials also said that a number of stations in the northwest and south had run out of ballots.

The huge numbers of people voting — the government says turnout was more than 80%, one of the highest rates since the Revolution in 1979 — meant that some stations were kept open until late Friday night. Many Iranians, especially those in Tehran, have reported that just before voting ended text-messaging and pro-Mousavi websites were blocked.

Was the Government's Fast Announcement of Results Normal?

No. The Interior Ministry announced the first results within an hour of the polls closing, and the official result less than a day later. The ministry is supposed to wait three days after voting before it certifies the result to allow time for disputes to be examined. Friday's announcement, which was based on a very small count, came just minutes after Mousavi declared himself to be "definitely the winner." According to a Mousavi official in Paris, the opposition leader was initially informed by the Interior Ministry that he had won. But ministry officials shortly thereafter publicly called it for Ahmadinejad.

Gary Sick, a Columbia University professor and Iranian-affairs adviser for three U.S. Administrations, said that given the apparent record turnout, it would have been impossible to announce a definitive result so soon after the polls closed because Iran does not use voting machines. The country uses paper ballots that must be counted by hand — a time-consuming process, Sick said in an interview posted on the Council on Foreign Relations website.

A fast announcement is not necessarily proof of rigging, says John Stremlau, vice president for peace programs at the Carter Center, which has monitored 75 elections over the past two decades. But for people to have confidence in those announcements a country needs an independent electoral commission that acts fairly and transparently. "You have none of that in the case of Iran," says Stremlau.

Are Any of the Vote Totals Suspicious?

Yes. Support for Ahmadinejad was strangely consistent across the country, a real change from previous elections when candidates drew different levels of support in different regions.

There were several other puzzlers in the results:

• According to official figures, Ahmadinejad handily beat Mousavi in Mousavi's hometown of Tabriz — a shocking result given the candidate's popularity in his own region.

• Ahmadinejad beat Mousavi in the big cities, even though Iran's very limited polling and anecdotal evidence indicate that Mousavi is far more popular than the President in cities.

• The official figures put support for the other main reformist candidate, Mehdi Karoubi, at below 1%. That is far less than what was expected, and a drastic departure from the pattern in previous elections.

How Popular Is Ahmadinejad in Iran?

It's possible that the President is simply far more popular than people outside Iran want to believe. There's no doubt that he has won the support of many voters by focusing on Iran's nuclear ambitions and by playing up the perceived threat from Washington and Israel.

At the same time, Iran's economy is a mess, and people are unhappy about a raft of everyday issues, from the price of food to joblessness.

The result is also surprising in light of Iran's demographic trends. There is a lot of evidence that as the country grows younger, it is also growing more moderate. A reform candidate won Iran's presidency with 70% of the vote in 1997, and increased his share to 78% four years later. In 2005, the reform movement had fallen on lean times and many young voters stayed at home; Ahmadinejad squeaked into the presidency in a second round of voting widely seen as having been tampered with. If the results this time are legitimate, it means that two-thirds of Iran's voters have become more conservative over the past four years.

It's also worth noting that big turnouts are often a sign that voters want change and tend to favor the challenger. This time around, by contrast, the incumbent President won two-thirds of the votes cast, according to the government.

[Marshal Murat]

Lemur - Thanks for the update and my Facebook profile pick has changed.

Recent HuffPost update also states that some Revolutionary Guard generals have been arrested after trying to get Iranian Army troops to join protests...unconfirmed.

If only there were facts that the media could accurately report to satisfy my curiosity.

[Banquo's Ghost]

The shootings by the Basiji were recorded and broadcast by the UK's Channel 4 news.

[tibilicus]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/8102400.stm

A recount has been announced. Not sure what that really means though in a country like Iran. Seems like the presidents purpose is to simply act as a puppet to please some ageing radical Islamists..

Reports are still coming in as well of militia raiding university dorms and arresting those who who are suspected of supporting the opposition.

[Scurvy]

The recount will be interesting. The result probably depends on whether the recent protests have persuaded the Council that Ahmadinejad is a liability.

It would be nice to know what the general consensus in Iran is.

[Beskar]

What they probably will do, they will actually make it look almost tied, but it is shown that Ahmadinejad did win.

[Hosakawa Tito]

I wonder how accurate this is:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said a recount would provide another opportunity for the government to manipulate the results.
He said the council ordered the printing of 53 million ballots for the elections, but only 39 million were used. Fourteen million ballots were missing.

taken from this article.

The alleged missing ballots coincidently add up to the margin of victory. What is the winning threshhold to prevent a run off between the top two vote getters, is it 51% ?

[KukriKhan]

I wonder how accurate this is: taken from this article.

The alleged missing ballots coincidently add up to the margin of victory. What is the winning threshhold to prevent a run off between the top two vote getters, is it 51% ?

I think so, based on the history of their last (2005) election. 1st round, highest % was 21% - the rest garnering less (among 7 candidates on-ballot), forcing a runoff between Rafsanjani & Ahmedjinidad, then a first-past-the-post deal, which A-Jad won with 62% (Wiki article).

[Hosakawa Tito]

Here's some more info on the Supreme Leader.

[Lemur]

Straight from the I-seriously-doubt-he'd-be-saying-this-if-he'd-been-elected-President department:

DAVID GREGORY: Let's get right to it on Iran. How does the U.S. deal with an emboldened Iranian President Ahmadinejad?

SENATOR JOHN McCAIN: Well, we lead; we condemn the sham, corrupt election. We do what we have done throughout the Cold War and afterwards, we speak up for the people of Tehran and Iran and all the cities all over that country who have been deprived of one of their fundamental rights. We speak out forcefully, and we make sure that the world knows that America leads — and including increased funding for part of the Farda, Iranian free radio.

No. Just no.

[rory_20_uk]

Straight from the I-seriously-doubt-he'd-be-saying-this-if-he'd-been-elected-President department:

DAVID GREGORY: Let's get right to it on Iran. How does the U.S. deal with an emboldened Iranian President Ahmadinejad?

SENATOR JOHN McCAIN: Well, we lead; we condemn the sham, corrupt election. We do what we have done throughout the Cold War and afterwards, we speak up for the people of Tehran and Iran and all the cities all over that country who have been deprived of one of their fundamental rights. We speak out forcefully, and we make sure that the world knows that America leads — and including increased funding for part of the Farda, Iranian free radio.

No. Just no.

If he were I just hope his advisors can dissuade him from uniting the Uranian people against foreign inteference.

[tibilicus]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/mid...st/8103269.stm

Not really surprising. I loath the Iranian political system, it disgust me that their "supreme leader" can even associate himself with any form of Theistic God.

[Lemur]

I'm really amazed at how off-target the cable news channels have been. Larry King devoted an hour and a half to American Idol this weekend. Fox News was obsessed with the Letterman-Palin feud. Didn't catch any MSNBC, but I expect they were just as tone-deaf.

Meanwhile HuffPo, Michael Totten and Sullivan have been indispensable, and The Daily Show, of all people, has a correspondent in Iran. Meanwhile, Matt Drudge finally conceded to reality by posting a non-Obama story last night, which must have pained him greatly. (Just checked: He's back to another Obama headline. Old habits die hard.)

MSM fail.

-edit-

I guess CNN realizes what idiots they've been. Here's a video from the weekend where they spend ten minutes justifying their Iran coverage.

-edit of the edit-

Great piece in the NYT today. Glad to see at least one of the majors has a man on the ground calling it like he sees it.

[Hosakawa Tito]

I'm really amazed at how off-target the cable news channels have been. Larry King devoted an hour and a half to American Idol this weekend. Fox News was obsessed with the Letterman-Palin feud. Didn't catch any MSNBC, but I expect they were just as tone-deaf.

Meanwhile HuffPo, Michael Totten and Sullivan have been indispensable, and The Daily Show, of all people, has a correspondent in Iran. Meanwhile, Matt Drudge finally conceded to reality by posting a non-Obama story last night, which must have pained him greatly. (Just checked: He's back to another Obama headline. Old habits die hard.)

MSM fail.

-edit-

I guess CNN realizes what idiots they've been. Here's a video from the weekend where they spend ten minutes justifying their Iran coverage.

Actually, somehow I managed to stay awake long enough last night to watch this interview by Rachel Maddow and Fawaz Gerges. Click the video link to watch.

[Lemur]

Good clip, Hosa. Glad to see that not every broadcaster on every cable news channel is oblivious to history when it happens.

Pat Buchannan nails it:

When your adversary is making a fool of himself, get out of the way. That is a rule of politics Lyndon Johnson once put into the most pungent of terms. U.S. fulminations will change nothing in Tehran. But they would enable the regime to divert attention to U.S. meddling in Iran's affairs and portray the candidate robbed in this election, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, as a poodle of the Americans. [...]

Nevertheless, Obama, with his outstretched hand, his message to Iran on its national day, his admission that the United States had a hand in the 1953 coup in Tehran, his assurances that we recognize Iran's right to nuclear power, succeeded. He stripped the Ayatollah and Ahmadinejad of their clinching argument -- that America is out to destroy Iran and they are indispensable to Iran's defense.

[Marshal Murat]

What Obama needs to do is tell the American people that we can't intervene, that's probably the biggest problem with the situation, is that we don't know where, exactly, the President stands on the issue. He basically said "We support you, but we can't do anything about it." He should come right out and say to the American people "We have to support them, but we can't do alot and here's why..."

Wall Street Journal Article

A 23-year-old Ahmadinejad supporter near the gathering said she was sympathetic to the young Mousavi supporters. But said they should stop protesting to prevent more violence. "The government has chosen Ahmadinejad," she said. "There is no use fighting it and getting young people killed."

That's the worst excuse I've ever heard for standing up to a repressive government.

[Kadagar_AV]

"his admission that the United States had a hand in the 1953 coup in Tehran"

Wait... this wasn't public knowledge until now???????????????????????????????????????????????

[Lemur]

Wait... this wasn't public knowledge until now?

It's one thing for it to be "public knowledge," and quite another for the President of the United States to attest to it in a formal setting.

For a contrary example, the Armenian Genocide is "public knowledge," but you aren't going to hear a Turkish Prime Minister acknowledge it in your lifetime.

These distinctions, while relatively meaningless to us, mean a lot to the aggrieved parties. It looks as though the President's take on how to approach Iran was clever in the extreme.

[Scurvy]

Not really surprising. I loath the Iranian political system, it disgust me that their "supreme leader" can even associate himself with any form of Theistic God.

Its far better than many Middle-Eastern systems. Despite the president not having complete authority, he is still important in governing the country, and has much influence. The press have limited freedom, but the fact Mousavi gained such support demonstrates it was not entirely restricted. Hopefully the current problems will lead to a further reform towards actual democratic government, but I would take it over absolute dictatorship any-day.

It disgusts me that the Pope can associate himself with any for of God to gain authority. The Supreme Leaders power has little to do with 'spiritual backing,' more political reality.

A 23-year-old Ahmadinejad supporter near the gathering said she was sympathetic to the young Mousavi supporters. But said they should stop protesting to prevent more violence. "The government has chosen Ahmadinejad," she said. "There is no use fighting it and getting young people killed."

That's the worst excuse I've ever heard for standing up to a repressive government.

I don't agree with it in this case, but I can see the logic. Violent clashes, especially between rival supporters, but also the police can cause unneccesary harm.