The Iranian election is dominating the news today and there are some good videos available over at Michael Totten's site. Also, to his credit, Andrew Sullivan has done a nice job of covering the elections. He along with Hugh Hewitt have noted the lack of MSM coverage this weekend. One interesting comment from Totten and Sullivan:
Andrew Sullivan writes: "The last time a news event gave me chills like this was the Soviet coup. It ended the regime." Yes, it did.You know what this reminds me (Totten) of? The convulsion that shook Ramadi, the capital of Anbar Province, Iraq.
As Ben Smith observes, the White House nonsense about Obama's speech influencing the elections has just been mugged by reality:
The notion of an "Obama effect" sweeping the Middle East appeared to collide with the realities of the Islamic Republic of Iran Saturday, as the country's confrontational, anti-American president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, celebrated a landslide victory in Friday's election amid wide doubts about the honesty of the official vote count
Jennifer Rubin says:
The problem with claiming credit for events in other countries is that when things go poorly people will interpret it as a personal rebuke. You can't have it both ways. And the problem with pretending that theocratic thugs are conducting a "real" elections is that when they prove to be not so "real" you look foolish for having cheered from the sidelines. Perhaps a less egocentric foreign policy is in order.
Predictably, many of the experts" are stunned by the level of fraud in the election. While it may be surprising to witness the reaction of Iranians to the fraudulent election, the fraud itself is not news. What else should be expected from The Little Kidnapper? John Podhoretz lays out the challenge for President Obama:
If this is Tiananmen II, and the regime crushes it, there will be no easy approach to regime change. And there will be no pretending any longer that Iran's regime isn't a unified, hardline, irridentist, and enormously dangerous one.
The White House is treading water on the crisis for now. Unlike his previous foreign policies ventures, when the President has attempted to have it both ways by utilizing soaring rhetoric that was absent any substance, the Iranian election crisis will be seen as a watershed moment in his presidency. The issues at stake are Middle East democracy, a nuclear Iran, an imminent attack by Israel and, of course, the Left's favorite cause (when it fits the narrative)...human rights. The clumsy mullahs have, if nothing else, painted the President into a corner with this sham election. He will have to make some real foreign policy decisions.
HughS
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Comments (10)
All of this turmoil could h... (Below threshold)1. Posted by Burt | June 14, 2009 8:33 AM | Score: 2 (2 votes cast)
All of this turmoil could have been so easily avoided. The Mullahs should have invited Jimmy Carter to act as an unbiased observer to the election process.
1. Posted by Burt | June 14, 2009 8:33 AM |
Score: 2 (2 votes cast)
Posted on June 14, 2009 08:33
2. Posted by Jeff Blogworthy | June 14, 2009 9:31 AM | Score: 2 (2 votes cast)
Look for similar doings in four years. Acorn is only getting more empowered and entrenched. The case against the Black Panther thugs "monitoring" the polls was nefariously spiked. Democrats keep counting until elections go their way, or sue in stacked courts. Yeah, we're looking pretty superior here. I fear for my country.
2. Posted by Jeff Blogworthy | June 14, 2009 9:31 AM |
Score: 2 (2 votes cast)
Posted on June 14, 2009 09:31
3. Posted by Garandfan | June 14, 2009 11:38 AM | Score: 2 (2 votes cast)
We just need some more of that 'smart diplomacy'. It will come in handy when the Iranians tell Barry to "bend over".
3. Posted by Garandfan | June 14, 2009 11:38 AM |
Score: 2 (2 votes cast)
Posted on June 14, 2009 11:38
4. Posted by 914 | June 14, 2009 11:39 AM | Score: 2 (2 votes cast)
Selected not elected seems to be fashionable everywhere these days.
4. Posted by 914 | June 14, 2009 11:39 AM |
Score: 2 (2 votes cast)
Posted on June 14, 2009 11:39
5. Posted by Burt | June 14, 2009 12:04 PM | Score: 1 (1 votes cast)
It would have been easy to avoid all this turmoil. The Mullahs should have invited Jimmy Carter to be an unbiased observer for the election.
5. Posted by Burt | June 14, 2009 12:04 PM |
Score: 1 (1 votes cast)
Posted on June 14, 2009 12:04
6. Posted by RicardoVerde | June 14, 2009 12:34 PM | Score: 2 (2 votes cast)
I have had a hard time making the egocentric fellow match up with the unicorns/rainbows we were sold. Maybe next time we can focus a little more on character and judgment. It would also help to make sure they have some record of accomplishment too. I suppose that's just stating the obvious.
6. Posted by RicardoVerde | June 14, 2009 12:34 PM |
Score: 2 (2 votes cast)
Posted on June 14, 2009 12:34
7. Posted by Nikolay | June 14, 2009 7:43 PM | Score: -1 (1 votes cast)
When you say that it's nonsense that Obama influenced the election, do you mean that you consider official results legitimate?
Otherwise, the obvious heavy rigging of the results and the huge turmoil in Iran prove that something unprecedented did indeed happen. As for how big was in fact Obama's influence, doesn't it seem to you to be in bad taste to talk about these things at the moment when people are dying for their freedom in Iran, and when the outcome is far from certain?
7. Posted by Nikolay | June 14, 2009 7:43 PM |
Score: -1 (1 votes cast)
Posted on June 14, 2009 19:43
8. Posted by epador | June 14, 2009 10:52 PM | Score: 2 (2 votes cast)
If there were any organized movement in Iran to derail the mullahs, this would be their fulcrum. However, there is none, and protesters will swept away just like tank man and never seen or heard form again.
8. Posted by epador | June 14, 2009 10:52 PM |
Score: 2 (2 votes cast)
Posted on June 14, 2009 22:52
9. Posted by cirby | June 15, 2009 10:40 PM | Score: 2 (2 votes cast)
Otherwise, the obvious heavy rigging of the results and the huge turmoil in Iran prove that something unprecedented did indeed happen.
Why? What makes you think that previous elections in Iran were clean? You think they suddenly, after 30 years, started fiddling with the vote counts, just because Obama spoke in Cairo?
Here's a more likely option: due to having Obama in office here, the mullahs figured they could go ahead and do whatever they wanted during the election, because the US won't do a damned thing about it.
On the other hand, the people in the streets know that it's possible to have a non-theocratic government in a Mideast country now - due to the "horrible" Bush years...
9. Posted by cirby | June 15, 2009 10:40 PM |
Score: 2 (2 votes cast)
Posted on June 15, 2009 22:40
10. Posted by Brian Richard Allen
| June 16, 2009 3:21 PM | Score: 1 (1 votes cast)
The murderous mad mullahs have indeed learned from the sail-eared simpleton.
Kinda.
'Cause compared to our "election," theirs was clean.
Included (in addition to the 50-odd million "votes" of the "Democrat's" regular "base:" Every American, that is, with a lower than 67 IQ herded by every one who is terminally-anally-retentive, is a fascist or a crypto-fascist -- "academics," lawyers and their likes) in our "vote" counts -- but not in those of our moronically-marijuana-mumbling mobbed-up Mussolini-modeled modified-Marxist murtadd Muslim's mad-mullah mates' -- are more than 10 million "votes" of the the "Democratic" potty-allied invading, conquering and hostilely-colonizing criminal alien army brigades, of that gang's ACORN brown-shirts-registered hundreds of thousands of felons and of millions of the long dead, the casts of countless Disney movies, the members of most NFL football teams and the first several score pages of the telephone directories of half of America's cities!
Brian Richard Allen
Los Angeles Califobambicated 90028
And the Far Abroad
10. Posted by Brian Richard Allen
| June 16, 2009 3:21 PM |
Score: 1 (1 votes cast)
Posted on June 16, 2009 15:21