Iranian Election Results (Updated)
[Guest post by DRJ]
Fraud, fraud, it’s Ahmadinejad:
“U.S. officials are casting doubt over the results of Iran’s election, in which the government declared President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the winner Saturday.
U.S. analysts find it “not credible” that challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi would have lost the balloting in his hometown or that a third candidate, Mehdi Karoubi, would have received less than 1 percent of the total vote, a senior U.S. officials told FOX News.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khameini apparently has released a statement calling the results “final” and hailing the election as a legitimization of the regime and its elections.”
Meanwhile, PJTV’s Roger L. Simon has a message for the Obama Administration:
“How deeply naive about Iran is the Obama administration. I wonder if any of them have even done any basic reading. I would suggest beginning with Amir Taheri’s biography of Ayatollah Khomeini. Then they would realize how very dumb this seems: The dominant view among Obama administration officials is that the regime will look so bad as a result of whipping up Iranian hopes for democracy and then squelching them that the regime may feel compelled to show some conciliatory response to Obama’s gestures of engagement.
Earth to Obama people. This is a religious movement. They could care less about what the world thinks. They care what Allah thinks. Get it?”
With Obama, it’s always about Obama.
UPDATE: More at Kevin Murphy’s post at The Jury Talks Back. Please read that and leave your comments there.
– DRJ
It’s Bush v. Gore in Farsi!
Comment by David Ehrenstein — 6/13/2009 @ 10:32 am
Sounds like a preview of 2012.
Comment by Mike K — 6/13/2009 @ 10:45 am
How deeply naive about Iran is the Obama administration.
I notice this morning’s Drudgereport has a link to an article about how “excited” Obama is by the supposed free-speech aspects of Iran’s presidential election.
Oh, brother.
And with Obama, it’s not just always about him, about his healthy ego. It’s always about his…(strike up the band!):
Comment by Mark — 6/13/2009 @ 10:47 am
Somehow, Iranian election fraud finds its way back to (and finds the ultimate fault with) Barack Obama. This is getting silly. Why do you encourage this type of thing, DRJ?
Comment by Leviticus — 6/13/2009 @ 11:04 am
The only robust debate going on in Tehran is where their first nuclear device will be detonated:
Tel Aviv or Haifa!
Comment by AD - RtR/OS! — 6/13/2009 @ 11:04 am
“…Why do you encourage this type of thing…”
Perhaps this is an answer:
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OTAyNzFjMmMwOWJjYmFmMTA2ODdjODZmZmQ0MWE1Mzg=
Comment by AD - RtR/OS! — 6/13/2009 @ 11:09 am
A long comment, over at The Jury Talks Back
Comment by Kevin Murphy — 6/13/2009 @ 11:15 am
By the way, if this holds up, it pretty much guarantees war between Israel and Iran. I expect Israel to pre-empt and, if the US won’t help, I expect them to use nukes.
Comment by Kevin Murphy — 6/13/2009 @ 11:17 am
Leviticus,
Obama has nothing to do with Iranian fraud and I never said or implied he did, but it is his job to deal with Iran.
Obama has embraced a pragmatic foreign policy of “intense diplomatic engagement with allies and adversaries alike.” America’s Presidents typically cycle between activism and pragmatism, and there are benefits and risks to both. Surely you aren’t suggesting I shouldn’t point out the risks of a policy based on “intense diplomatic engagement” when the other nation has other goals and thus may not be receptive?
Comment by DRJ — 6/13/2009 @ 11:18 am
Still not seeing the connection to Iran, although the Hanson article articulates a number of reasons why I wouldn’t give a shit if Obama was impeached tomorrow. The first five months of his administration have been one long string of nails in the coffin into which I’ve placed my faith in American government.
Comment by Leviticus — 6/13/2009 @ 11:18 am
Good post, Kevin. I’m adding a link above.
Comment by DRJ — 6/13/2009 @ 11:19 am
I love that Obama referenced his Cairo speech and tried to take credit for this “debate” in Iran. Hillary Clinton was gratified by the size of the voter turnout.
Fools
Amateurs
The ballot boxes were stuffed, the bassij voted multiple times.
The guy who has the Legal Insurrection blog refers to the voter fraud via no photo ID as: “Acorn in Iran”
Anyway, like I posted on another thread, dictators use elections as tools to identify dissenting individuals and organizations.
Now that the “election” is over lives of the dissenters will be shattered.
A 6000 word self flagellating yawner in Cairo didn’t do anything except get more praise from Obama’s American media fan base.
Hugo Chavez, Ahmadinejad, and that doofus from North Korea are literally laughing out loud at Obama. The American media is so blinded by their love for Obama that they can’t believe that Obama’s words didn’t produce a shred of positive change… so they cover it up.
This is another in a series of stunning foreign policy losses.
Even the British hate us now.
Comment by SteveG — 6/13/2009 @ 11:19 am
Fox News (Not Roger L. Simon):
It’s next to impossible to believe Iran would change its nuclear policy regardless of who the president is. Mir Hossein Mousavi would have been harder to insult and confront than Ahmadinejad. I don’t see that Ahmadinejad will now be playing a stronger hand. Widely-held doubts about any office-holder’s legitimacy make him easier to caricature.
Comment by steve — 6/13/2009 @ 11:30 am
The Iranian mullahs don’t seem to have doubts about Ahmadinejad’s legitimacy.
Comment by DRJ — 6/13/2009 @ 11:34 am
It doesn’t matter how many people went to the polls in Iran, the Mad Mullahs are the only votes that count,
and I’mANutJob had those votes in his pocket.
Comment by AD - RtR/OS! — 6/13/2009 @ 11:39 am
Most dictators are caricatures. They usually don’t give a rat’s a** until they are about to die.
Witty cartoons of Ahmadinejad, protests in LA’s Iranian enclaves won’t stop Iran from killing NATO forces in Afghanistan and Americans in Iraq.
They will continue to destabilze the region by funneling cash and arms to terrorists, they will continue purchasing nuclear cooperperation from North Korea.
Nice speeches from under the shadow of the Sphinx won’t do it either
Comment by SteveG — 6/13/2009 @ 11:51 am
cooperation.
Good to know that “D” I got in high school typing class is still paying dividends
Comment by SteveG — 6/13/2009 @ 12:03 pm
Nice speeches from under the shadow of the Sphinx won’t do it either
And the “Axis of Evil” speech worked miracles.
Obama doesn’t have the testosterone to lift sanctions or remove Iran from the State Department list of terror-sponsoring states, which apparently is what the mullahs demand to start a nuclear dialogue.
Comment by steve — 6/13/2009 @ 12:31 pm
But why should we leave our hand out? When they are done hanging mullah’s from lampposts someday, they will remeber that the US stood with the dictator.
Again.
Comment by Kevin Murphy — 6/13/2009 @ 12:43 pm
um mullahs not mullah’s
Comment by Kevin Murphy — 6/13/2009 @ 12:44 pm
“…And the “Axis of Evil” speech worked miracles…”
Comment by steve — 6/13/2009 @ 12:31 pm
Only Dieties are able to engage in miracles, politicians (in this case GWB) attempt to accomplish more pragmatic ends.
In this case, it allowed for an agreement among Maritime Nations that initiated a high-seas inspection program that enforced trading restrictions imposed upon NoKo, and revealed arms shipments to Gaza by Iran, among other violations of U.N. agreements.
Comment by AD - RtR/OS! — 6/13/2009 @ 12:51 pm
Street riots. Fires. Even some gunfire for seasoning. Shades of Chicago, 1968. Phone and web connection severed. Shades of ‘democratic’ Communist China (the Reds now holding America hostage to debt) 20 years ago. Two winners with Citizen Kane-esque cries of ‘Fraud At Polls.’ Shades of USA, November 2000 and Minnesota, 2008. Ah yes, the sweet smell of birthing democracy at work. Yeah, the Middle East is ready for it to be ‘imposed’ on their culture at gunpoint by for sure. Might as well walk through a pool of petrol and gasoline striking matches.
Russian ‘democracy,’ such as it is, was birthed from the inside out, with echoes of tank fire in Moscow, albeit with the overt and covert encouragment of midwives to the West. But it was theres to create from within. Both Britain and the United States battled to shape and save their democracies through terrible and costly civil and world wars. Democracy came to Japan and Germany at great expense through a costly war and long, expensive occupations. That kind of conflict is to be avoided at all costs.
The West will wisely and carefully observe another democracy struggling to life in that region, or be stillborn. It is Iran’s decision to make, not America’s – or Israel’s – to impose.
Comment by DCSCA — 6/13/2009 @ 1:14 pm
Thank you, DCSCA. I may not agree with everything you say but I appreciate the way you said it.
Comment by DRJ — 6/13/2009 @ 1:19 pm
#9- it is his job to deal with Iran.
DRJ, I disagree. It is not the responsibility of the American president to ‘deal’ with Iran. American meddling was the catalyst of the tensions with that country 50-plus years ago when the Shah was installed. The population of Iran is youngish and it is best to stand by and observe with guarded vigilance as their new generation wrestles some kind of democratic government to life.
Comment by DCSCA — 6/13/2009 @ 1:22 pm
#23- You’re most welcome.
Comment by DCSCA — 6/13/2009 @ 1:23 pm
DCSCA,
We may have a failure to communicate. By “deal with,” I meant Obama has the responsibility to cope with international issues that affect US interests. I didn’t mean the US must resolve every problem.
Comment by DRJ — 6/13/2009 @ 1:24 pm
Ah yes, the vaunted Student Uprising that is going to happen any day now and has been fixing to happen any day now for the last 20 years.
Comment by Techie — 6/13/2009 @ 1:28 pm
Don’t blame me–I voted for Nader.
Comment by Official Internet Data Office — 6/13/2009 @ 1:30 pm
Tehran Bureau, (an independent Iranian journalism site) is claiming 50 – 100 people dead by Iranian regime police.
Alerts from Tehran
Comment by Techie — 6/13/2009 @ 1:41 pm
#26- Agreed. And, of course, Secretary Of State Clinton is the instrument of those interests. We may agree that Ms. Clinton, at least to me, would not have been a first choice for that position.
Comment by DCSCA — 6/13/2009 @ 1:51 pm
#29- There will be bloodshed birthing a democracy.
Comment by DCSCA — 6/13/2009 @ 1:55 pm
Yes, that worked so well in 1793!
Comment by AD - RtR/OS! — 6/13/2009 @ 2:12 pm
John Bolton would have been my choice for SS – yeah, I know it’s a pipe dream, but he seems to be one of the few who always knew what the real truth of the matter lied with Iran, as well as with the rest of the ME.
Comment by Dmac — 6/13/2009 @ 2:30 pm
We can agree that there will indeed be blood shed.
I think democracy in Iran will be aborted this time around.
Obama, Clinton and the media seemed to think Obama’s speech would make the “election” close and encourage “debate”.
I think Obama projected weakness that made the mullahs realize they could be more brazen and repressive. A lot of people in Iran are going to be disappeared.
I predict that once the mullahs finish reconsolidating power post election they’ll redouble their work destabilizing Iraq and Afghanistan… because they know Obama is all velvet, no hammer.
The mullahs should be living a life where they can never drive in the same car two days in a row lest it have a gas leak and explode or something
Comment by SteveG — 6/13/2009 @ 2:34 pm
I’ve said it before and so many others have also said the same thing – the ME countries that are ruled by dictators only respect one thing; an opponent’s ability to blow them off the face of the earth and the will and conviction to do so. Obama looks weak to all of the dictators, and they’re acting appropriately.
Comment by Dmac — 6/13/2009 @ 2:40 pm
Hell, The LiC (Liar in Chief) even looks weak to the Barons in Congress.
Comment by AD - RtR/OS! — 6/13/2009 @ 3:54 pm
Rumor has it that Mousavi has been arrested.
And good ole Jimmah says the election was on the up and up. Can’t we leave him over there.
Comment by PatAZ — 6/13/2009 @ 5:18 pm
Jimmy helped bring down the Shah, albeit unintentionally. You would think that would give the man pause.
Comment by Kevin Murphy — 6/13/2009 @ 6:19 pm
I guess this is the foreign policy crisis that Biden warned us about. I hope that Obaqma does nothing that a future president has to apologize to Iran for.
Comment by Kevin Murphy — 6/13/2009 @ 6:20 pm
I wonder about Mousavi as well. After all, he was chosen by the mullahs.
We shall see, I guess. Time will tell.
I hope and pray that this time they will get the revolution right.
Comment by Patricia — 6/13/2009 @ 7:22 pm
The dominant view among Obama administration officials is that the regime will look so bad as a result of whipping up Iranian hopes for democracy and then squelching them that the regime may feel compelled to show some conciliatory response to Obama’s gestures of engagement.
… sounds like Obama in Wonderland with Ahmadinnerjacket as the rabbit.
Comment by Neo — 6/13/2009 @ 7:24 pm
[...] Was it fraud? – Potterico’s Pontifications. [...]
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