Comments on: Ahmadinejad Declared Winner By State Media

By: michael reynolds

michael reynolds — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 01:29:10 +0000

Pipes is an idiot who’s looking for another war. Needless to say he has no brilliant ideas on how we might prevail in such a war.

By: Jimmy the Dhimmi

Jimmy the Dhimmi — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 01:05:07 +0000

From Daniel Pipes:

better to have a bellicose, apocalyptic, in-your-face Ahmadinejad who scares the world than a sweet-talking Mousavi who again lulls it to sleep, even as thousands of centrifuges whir away[?]

By: wj

wj — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 16:27:06 +0000

Looking as successive reports of vote totals, the portions stay exactly the same. Which means that either exactly the same portion of voters went for each candidate, throughout the country which is unlikely in the extreme), or the reported results were unconstrained by the actual number of votes cast.

Personally, I would not call that “irregularities.” Irregularities would suggest that most of the votes were counted and reported properly, but some significant number were must counted or misreported. That is not what we seem to be seeing here. What we are seeing is a work of fiction, all the way.

I can certainly see why Mousavi is upset. The only question is, what effective action can he take? And I don’t know enough about the power relationships in Iran to make an informed guess.

By: Alistair

Alistair — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 10:47:28 +0000

This election is no different in what happen last year in Zimbabwa but at the same time you have to wonder if some of George W Bush’s people had something to do with? After all the Neo-Cons like Joh Bolton & Daniel Pipes wanted Ahmadenihjad to win.

By: Nick Benjamin

Nick Benjamin — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 04:07:29 +0000

It’ll be interesting to see what happens with Mousavi’s protest. In some places the loser always claims it was rigged. Usually Iran is not one of those places. I wouldn’t put it past Ahmadinejad to rig the election, but I’ll still be surprised if it turns out that he did. Doing so without the Ayotollah’s okay would be a remarkably stupid thing for anybody in Iran to try. And I doubt the Ayotollah would give Ahmadenihjad permission to do so. The Revolutionary Council approved all four candidates. Presumably if Mousavi was planning something they didn’t like they wouldn’t have let him run.

So I’m guessing one of two things happened. One Mousavi is making this shit up to keep his Presidential dreams alive. Two the Ayottolah really, really likes Ahmdinejad’s policies, and wants evidence those policies have widespread public support.

BTW, the most recent info from the BBC is Ahmadinejad has 65% with 80% of the ballots counted, which means he’s got the 50%+1 he needed to avoid a runoff.

By: the Word

the Word — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 02:16:21 +0000

Sham elections? Did Katherine Harris and her goons move?

By: Jimmy the Dhimmi

Jimmy the Dhimmi — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 02:11:57 +0000

Its also disappointing because the whole election was a sham to begin with.