Well, it looks like the hard-line mayor of Tehran has pulled off an upset. This is going to be a big setback for social reform in Iran, as well as relations with the West, the nuclear issue, etc. Things could get very interesting …
I agree with you that it’s an interesting situation to watch.
I wouldn’t say that it’s an “upset” though. This guy was the hand-picked candidate of the hardline clerics who run the show in Iran, and he would not have even been in the run-off in the first place if the clerics hadn’t intervened the first time to replace the real vote totals with their own desired vote totals. Apparently, when the initial votes were gathered (this was the election to see who were going to be the final two candidates) this guy wasn’t even close. AFTER the initial results were announced, the “Guardian Council” intervened to say “Oh you thought we said he came in 5th place? We meant 1st place — he gets to run in the run-off election.”
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/06/20/1328223&mode=thread&tid=25
This source, by the way, for those unfamiliar with it – is… “progressive”, to put it charitably, and one that is loath to take any position supported by the current US administration (such as saying that the Iranian elections are a fraud). So if even these guys are saying that the election results are bogus (and that was the basic conclusion of the show – you can listen to the whole thing on mp3 on that site if you are interested) tells me that we really shouldn’t be surprised to see an “upset” victory by the person who the people truly in power wanted to win in the first place. In other words, this “election result” is about as surprising as Saddam Hussein’s 99% landslide victory in his last Iraqi “election”. 
I agree with Hobbes. The election in Iran was about as “interesting” as watching mob bosses choose a leader among themselves to continue their reign of terror and rampage in the city. No one was talking about disbanding the gang after all.
The US war with Iran has already begun.
Sunday 19 June 2005 - Americans, along with the rest of the world, are starting to wake up to the uncomfortable fact that President George Bush not only lied to them about the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq (the ostensible excuse for the March 2003 invasion and occupation of that country by US forces), but also about the very process that led to war.
That’s exactly like the goons who control the pepsi vs coke nonsense that are the US elections.
looks to me like the Iranian leadership just told bush to take a hike.
It’s scandalous the way powerful special interests – particularly religious special interests – have manipulated the electoral and legislative process in Iran behind the scenes, leaving the common citizen disenfranchised.
This unconscionable corruption of the democratic process should not be tolerated by true freedom-loving countries of the world. If they don’t stop it and stop it soon we should form a quick mini-coalition of the U.S., Saudia Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt and other concerned countries in the region and bomb the bejesus out of them until they see the light and adopt the U.S. electoral model.
We could call it Operation Elect This!
You really give Bush and the US way more credit than they deserve in this case. If a hardliner was “elected”, it makes far less sense for it to be a reaction to the US in itself and far more sense for it to be a reaction to certain develiopments within Iran itself (more liberal thinking in the past few years). You could also call it a reaction to encroaching “Western” influences.
I find it interesting that so many people like to quote polls showing how hated America and Bush are abroad, but that these polls never include Iran where America is admired by perhaps 90 percent of the population. This has certainly been born out by my visits there.
Second, the Iranian election was a staged event. It has all of the importance of Kremlin watching or People’s Party watching. What really is the point? The leadership that emerges is essentially the same. Let’s call a spade a spade and demand real elections. I would imagine that Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and so many of these other organizations would be screaming about this farce? Why aren’t they? I wonder. I wonder.
Because there’s Korans to be dug out the terlit Fred…come ON!
And in Taiwan, apparently things are getting so bad, I don’t know how I make it through the day without some form of abuse or other…
silly neoconbear 
Recently, Mugabe ploughed over huge areas of Harare including mosques with Korans inside. Strange, I do not recall reading anything much about that. Surely actual destruction of mosques and being bulldozed would be far worse for Korans than having an infidel touch or “not touch” them which as we all knows amounts to eggregious Koran “harm.” This is too laughable. I merely wish we could send our earnest young lefties to live in these lands of their dreams. Oh for merely a year in Iran for the next smartass who reads Zmag.org and thinks that makes him “sophisticated in that cynical French way you know Derrida, Foucault, Gauloises?” Much better to wear black and talk about oppression, fuck le system rather than actually holding down a job and saving for one’s retirement but qu’est que vous attendez? n’est ce pas?
Always good to see. Shame the US electorate is less enlightened than the Iranian one. But then there is culture and class in Persia…
Less glibly, we should not write Adenoidajid or whatever his name is, off. We could be pleasantly surprised. He is a ‘man of the people’ and Iranians are very nice people so by extension, it will be all right.
Long Live The Islamic Revolution!
Oh always with the xxxx people are so nice and hospitable, ergo we cannot criticize their government. I have always been a major fan of Persian culture, literature, art, architecture, etc. but I side with the 90 percent of the Iranians who want a new government and the more than 70 percent that want improved relations with the US. Hell, that is even better than Germany but why am I not surprised. One nation is a civilized one that values freedom, the other is a tortured nation of sadomasochists that has a long-lasting love affair with isms.
We agree then. Militarism and egoism are your current love affairs.
That leaves the Iranians as the civilized ones.
You just don’t understand Persian culture.
Well I am with the 90 percent of the Afghans who did not want the Taliban, the 95 percent of the Iraqis who were glad to see Saddam go and the 90 percent of Iranians that will be happy to see the mullahs go and they will. Iran is in its last gasps of dictatorship. This new president “elected” by the people is the final straw. I believe a new Lebanon will be just around the corner. Finally, the country will be freed from its Carter induced tyranny and we can finally rest assured that the two worst foreign policy tragedies: Iran and Vietnam are finally being rectified. Stick around.
Drivel