Important Things to Know About Iran's Election

Twitter riots, Hezbollah and possibly Amal shock troops on the streets, and voting results are the latest rage in the Islamic Republic of Iran. With news being dumped left and right there are a few important things to know about the recent disputed election.

1. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad cheated but would have won anyway. Was there fraud in this election? Of course there was (American elections are hardly clean). President Ahmadinejad had the full backing of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp who control the flow of movement throughout the country and protect the election ballots. Any Iranian or Arab country under Iranian threat knows the IRGC plays dirty. But this is besides the point. The Western media (the biggest offender being the Washington Post-owned publication Foreign Policy) based their predictions of a "high turnout equals reformist Mir-Hossein Mousavi victory" based on reports from the Mousavi camp who based their opinion on reading blogs, Facebook, and Twitter. This flawed sampling method would make a Mousavi victory seem likely. Only a limited segment of Iran uses new media. The poor Persians, industrial Azeris, and tribal everyone else do not use new media and these groups tend to like Ahmadinejad for this tough foreign policy stances. The bad polling is much like the 1936 case of Literary Digest claiming President Roosevelt would lose reelection. They conducted their poll by telephone: a device only used by upper-middle class (Republicans) at the time.

2. Mosavi is not a reformist. The man was prime minister during the Iran-Iraq War. He is not as hard core on women's issues but when it comes to nuclear policy, Israel, the United States, Iranian minorities, etc he is just like Ahmadinejad. The reason why Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the real leader of Iran, allowed Mosavi to run for president is because Khamenei knew Mosavi would follow the line and not rock the boat.

3. Iran is the Islamic Republic of Iran (It is not a normal country just with a different viewpoint). Foreign Policy and there ilk are confused. In part of their claiming that the election was stolen they state "would a victor act like this?" A better question would be "would an Islamic Republic paranoid of losing power do this?" The answer is yes. Iran's leaders remember how fun it was to drag the Shah's troops through the streets during the Iranian Revolution. Those who dragged and killed the Shah's men know what horrible fate to have it down to oneself and will do anything to avoid it. Heck, these are the people who kill gays and minorities in the street because they seem them as a threat!

Okay, now that I have vented I will be okay. In the meantime I hope you readers have a better understanding of what is going on inside Iran.