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Main news sources may have been a bit late off the mark but that may partly have to do with most foreign journalists actually in the country spending the election day aftermath being arrested/detained/deported and their equipment confiscated. My radio news in Australia was running with a story about protests and riots by citizens concerned that the election was rigged, and fast and large police crackdowns that sent protesters running everywhere out of sight very quickly... very scared about being arrested.

Edited, Jun 14th 2009 3:54am by Aripyanfar

CNN.com is on the ball now, but apparently CNN the TV Station didn't mention it at all yesterday or Friday- you know how they have the streaming news and stuff on the bottom as well as rotating world news, etc? It wasn't even a blip on the radar.

All I can say is Channel 4 is the shit. Lindsey Hilsum? Fucking pro.

News agencies no. Network news, it might be the lesser of two evils and much more ignorable.

I agree, this is not a new Iranian Revolution. It might be planting some seeds of democracy, of protest, of resistance against authority, but the second revolution is nowhere near. There seems little doubt that the results were not "fair", but probably not to the extent that we're making them to be in the West. And while some young people are pissed off, they simply don't have the means to topple, or even seriously weaken, the current regime or political structure.

In some ways, this reminds me of W's election in 2004. Everyone was hoping for an upset, but the people re-elected the **** in power. It's a shame, for sure, but it's not like other candidates would've necessarily made an enormous change to Iran's nuclear policy. It's a bit easy to think that Iran's elections were decided on foreign policy matters, like nuclear power and Israel, but by and large they weren't. These issues matter to us, but not so much to ordinary Iranians. These elections were dominated and decided on domestic issues, like most elections around the world. And while the result was disappointing, the turn-out was great. Young people in Iran are getting a taste for democracy, and that will probably be a good thing on the long-run.

It is pretty stunning. My momey would've been on nothing at all happening. Had Khamenei said that the result was final, it would've been final. I still don't think much will come out of it, but the simple fact that they are "investigating" is pretty significant. If ever they do come out and say that electroal fraud did happen, then it would be quite a huge story.



Yes and no. The President does make a difference. The change in tone, and in substance, between Ahmedinejad and Khatami was quite significant. Had Mousavi won, it would've lead to a change in both rethoric and substance. I'm not saying the nuclear problem would've gone away, but it certainly would've evolved a bit. Mousavi would not be saying the Holocaust didn't happen, and he would not be as belligenrent towards Israel.

So yes, it's true that the major decisions are taken by the Ayatollahs, but the President does make a difference on many levels. The current ********* with Iran is largely due to Ahmedinejad's personality and policies. He might be a puppet, but he's an influential puppet.

I believe the word you wanted was "lose."

I don't think anyone realistically expected that to happen (I sure didn't). But I'm surprised they're actually looking into charges of fraud and not just saying "Hey, no he did fine and there was nothing wrong with the results. Shut up before we beat you down." I expected all protests to be immediately squashed and to not hear anything. Kind of a nice surprise it was different than that.