The Iranian election

The huge demonstration yesterday in Tehran in favor of supposedly defeated Presidential reform candidate Hossein Mousavi has taken most of us by surprise. That hundreds of thousands of people would come out and support him when the rally had been declared illegal by the authorities shows us that there is indeed some basis for the claims of the "opposition" that something was wrong with the election results.
To those of us on the outside, we are definitely not in favor of Ahmedinejad, and although some cynics think it would be better for Israel if Ahmedinejad won, thus making the future clearer, nevertheless we basically hoped that Mousavi had a chance. But, what we are not fully aware of is that most polls and commentators in Iran gave Mousavi around 50% of the vote. For Ahmedinejad to win by 63% to 33%, i.e. 2 to 1, goes against all predicitons. Not only that, the margin is larger than ever before, and he won the provinces and localities of the other three candidates, almost a statistical impossibility. That is why the Iranian people are so riled up by the smug result of a landslide re-election for Ahmedinejad.
Could a huge fraud have been committed? The answer is, of course! Ahmedinejad is the favorite puppet of the Mullahs who really control the levers of power in Iran. It would be simple for them to make a decision in advance that Ahmedinejad will win by a large enough majority that no one can claim otherwise. But, they failed to be somewhat modest or realistic in their fraud, rather preferring to rub it in their faces, with a huge election victory that is not believeable to the Iranians themselves.
Leaving aside the moral question of religious leaders organizing a fraudulent election result, their motivation is clearly to protect the "revolution," namely the spirit of Khomenei in Iran. But, the Iranaian electorate is now much younger than it was before and many of those voting no longer remember the situation under the Shah before Khomenei came along. They have grown up under an oppressive clerical dictatorship that determines which candidates they may vote for, where the President is himself merely a puppet of the clerical system, and now they have "stolen" the election.
This might be the "dream" that many have had of avoiding the looming clash with Iran over its nuclear weapons program by a "regime change." Nevertheless, we must be realistic, one protester was shot dead by the forces of the Imams and three died in the protests in previous days. Whether or not this kind of mass protest can be sustained, whether or not more arrests are in the offing, and whether or not such deaths will galvanize the populace into further protests, is unknown. That a unique and major protest against the clerical dictatorship in Iran has happened is clear, and things will never again be the same, but what this portends remains to be seen.