this Iran election thing

appears to me to be another country mouse vs city cousin thing. While we all find it easier to identify with the city mice who supported the candidate receiving 1/3 of the vote (which was very much in line with pre-election polling), the country mice comprise a majority of the electorate and voted for Ahmadenijad, in the words of the little ones who Art Linkletter used to ask why they loved their mothers on his daily TV show, "because she buys me things." Fact is the rural poor need to have things bought for them, but the educated urbanites feel the country's revenues could be better spent supporting a growth economy that would offer them better employment.

Question is whether the Supreme Leader and the Council of Experts have a vested interest in maintaining the rural poor in their difficult plight in order to preserve a power base of conservative Shiites. I guess it's reasonable to assume that the conservative clerics do wish to maintain and reward the folks who support their "traditional values" message, and they are probably wary of the educated city folks.

The critical factor is the women, who are, under the law, second-class citizens, but who have aspirations of professional and political equality. Again, these educated hopeful women are city mice. It is not likely the other candidate Mousavi has rock star status among the women since in an earlier term as Prime Minister he was very comfortable accomodating the clerics and was not noticably a reformer. It seems that it was Mousavi's wife, a former university chancellor, who sparked the women's hopes of a better future with outspoken campaign speeches. The appearance of a candidates spouse at campaign events in itself was a departure from the norm, and her speaking forcefully at the events gave educated Iranian women hope for change.

I don't think, however that the demonstrators really believe the election was stolen. They're angry that their candidate lost, but acting out in the streets because your candidate lost an election 2 to 1 does not fit into a valid model for a democracy. I think Obama realizes that, and has not been able to call for the rejection of a legitimately elected president. I'm sure he hopes, as do we all, that Islam will somehow grow out of the anachronistic tendency to diminish women's rights and opportunities, but he knows an assault on the imans would be counterproductive.

He wishes to maintain any possible opportunities for constructive dialogue with Iran regarding assistance they can provide in Afghanistan and the possibility of curtailing the Iranian nuclear programs. Since it is the Israelis who hope Obama's recent overtures to Islam will fail to produce beneficial results, and resentful Republicans who are calling on him to reject the results of the election and repudiate Ahmadenijad, I can only hope his cautious balancing act works out in the best interest of all concerned.

Nobody said it was going to be easy.