Iran blows up

Juan Cole has a good analysis of what probably happened in the Iranian election.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/06/13/iran/

His conclusion is that the election was a "last-minute and clumsy fraud," by a central government that was caught by surprise but was determined not to let reformist candidate Moussavi win.

It's the pattern of supposed voting that makes no sense. Ahmadinejad reportly won by a 63% majority that was spread rather uniformly across the country, in cities as well as countryside. It makes no sense that Ahmadinejad would have run equally strongly in areas where he was popular as in areas where his challenger had aroused the most enthusiasm.

Urban youth and women were especially strong supporters of Moussavi, and they turned out in huge numbers to vote -- and yet the official results show that their support for the reform candidate was less than their vote for the reform candidate in 1997 and 2001.

Cole points out that a carefully planned theft of the election would at least have conceded his home region of Tabriz to Moussavi. But official results have Ahmadinejad winning Tabriz by 57%.

Will it have much pracical significance? Some say not, since the president does not have much power; the government is run by the theocrat, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

What does seem evident at this point is that the obvious fraud has galvanized the resistance; there is even some talk among correspondents of a possible overthrow of Khamenei -- or at least a loss of power possibly leading to replacing him, if not the government.

What remains to be seen is how far the violent resistance will go. As of this moment it seems to be escalating. This, combined with the crackdown on the international media and the blacking out of all email communciation, suggest a very serious problem and certainly a black eye on the Iranian government's attempt for acceptance on the world stage.

Ralph