We rely on English sources because we speak English. An awful lot of those people with cell phones and computers in Iran do, too, and there are plenty of people who can translate for those who don’t. We sometimes forget just how ubiquitous our language of choice is around the world.

To see the opposite of “calm and prosaic”, one would need to to take a gander at the shrill, pious, and hysterical bleatings of George Packer over at The New Yorker.

That’s certainly possible. The “pious poor” vs. “wealthy urbanite” dichotomy can be exaggerated, but the examples of Russia and Venezuela keep haunting me. In those countries two-thirds of the people really have backed Putin/Medvedev and Chavez, and then we see fraud and violence in addition to that. It seems very plausible to me that the relatively more “liberal” faction has a smaller social base and is alienated from the rest of the country, because this is frequently what happens in modernizing countries. In this respect, it might help to compare the electoral fortunes of Ahmadinejad and Erdogan, who both came to national power after being mayors of their respective large cities, tapped into their own varieties of Islamist populism, and campaigned against the establishment and the more technocratic and educated left. The continuing failure of most analysts to account for the role of religious sentiment in all of this is remarkable.

Analogies to our own elections are bound to be imperfect, and I wouldn’t ever rule out the possibility of significant vote rigging, but I am not persuaded that if we concede that the rigging occurred that the outcome is therefore fake. The point I believe that Friedman is making is that Ahmadinejad’s enemies would not have just called him on it after the fact, but would have announced the fraud to the world in advance.

I thought one of Friedman’s best points is that most everyone outside Iran is relying heavily on English-language sources. Obviously, so am I, but I think that should make us very wary of trusting accounts from English-language sources that purport to give us the inside information on what is happening in the country as a whole. The English-language sources may be telling the truth as far as they go, but may be offering just a partial picture. Then again, they may be selling us something, and I would have thought our experience with Iraqi exiles would make us more cautious about buying into stories that conform to our expectations, fears and assumptions.

How paint dries, for example, is much more interesting.

I think the reason is that subtlety is not their trait. They would rather go for “convincing (large) margins” than “justifiable margins”. Another aspect is a show of power: yes, I have rigged elections in such a ridiculous manner… I dare you to stop me from coming to power.

It will also serve well to keep in mind the way general people talk about elected leaders. Its fairly common to refer to the elected premiere as having “won the throne”, children of ex-premieres as “heir apparent” or “crown prince”. Had Bush been projected as “heir apparent” in 2000, his campaign would be DOA. Folks in India, on the other hand, could win elections by claiming to be close to “heir apparent”.

A few points I would like to make:

1. In India, even exit poll results are quite contrary to the results of final elections. This has happened more-or-less consistently in the recent past. The opinion polls are known to miss the target quite significantly. For example, in 2004, they predicted strong majority for the incumbent, the opposition “won”; this elections, they predicted trouble for the incumbent, who “won” quite comfortably.

[I put "won" in quotes because we are a multi-party parliamentary democracy.]

It is very possible that the opinion polls failed to capture realities.

2. In countries like Iran, use of force does not imply “stealing of the election”. Regimes like these are not averse to using force against their own citizens, even if Ahmadenijad really won. In fact, a real victory with such a margin would make him feel entitled to using force… since he might feel he has won the political capital to do so.

3. University educated folks form a minority of Iranian population. Have similar unrest been reported elsewhere in Iran? Why not? If yes, would that not be more important to focus on. We are talking about rights of a vocal, educated minority; what about rights of a majority who’s views may be antithetical to ours?

Seriously, there’s a debate going on right now about national healthcare. The result of which will in all likelihood have a more profound and long-lasting affect on all Americans than whichever stooge of the Guardian Council gets to flounder on the global stage next. I’d love to hear about the dissident or paleo-conservative approach to healthcare. Is healthcare indeed a right? Should it be administered at the Federal level, or should state governments be charged with providing it? Will government expenditures into healthcare be a net loss, or will the financial stability that it imparts on families allow the economy to grow? Will national healthcare impart financial stability to families?

Please, anything other than Iran.

Thats an amazing reading of the situation, considering the “opposition” (1) has made it clear that nuclear development will continue and (2) was part of the ruling regime that initiated the suicidal Iran-Iraq war and (3) is supported by a large player amongst the internal politics of the Guardian Council. There is little, if any, substance to suggest that people are for the destruction of a predominantly Islamic state, or even if there is much of a platform outside of some irritation over cultural-social issues. China conveniently vented such distinctly middle-class frustrations fairly well after Tienanmen Square and theres no obvious reasons why a similar relaxation couldn’t appease Iran’s middle-class.

That said, either way it goes its not any of our concern on a national level, and hopefully the less than concerned attitude of Obama will hold, silencing his neo-con and war-mongering critics.

Ahmadinejad is a puppet of the feckless mullahs. They have been locked into a little retrograde box by the Internet and the bravery of people who are fed up. That said, how is a totally bifurcated Iran a genuine threat to the US? The neo-cons want to attack Iran. The question now is, Why?

For explanations of why the announced Iranian election results are implausible, see http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/06/iran-does-have-some-fishy-numbers.html, and http://www.juancole.com/2009/06/stealing-iranian-election.html.

In part these images are published because of the natural bias of the Anglophone press. But to whom are the English-language signs supposed to appeal? How many Iranians are fluent in English?

Putin scored some easy nationalist points against Kasparov when he criticized the chess grandmaster for staging his protests in English. Can anti-Mousavi partisans make the same criticism?

And this desire to work with the current regime, I believe, has the strongest chance of producing durable changes in how the system operates. As long as a significant portion (if not outright majority) of the country prefers a defensive crouch to America, the power of the military over internal politics is not only accepted, but arguably approved. Never under-estimate mass approval of wide-scale oppression. A nonplussed attitude from America is the quickest way to neuter such arguments.