06.13.09
The way to read this: It was obviously the outcome the mullahs wanted
Ahmadinejad declared the winner in Iran’s presidential election.
There will be some unrest, but let us not make too much of Mousavi’s potency as some kind of “reformist” counter to monolithic theocracy. Mousavi is, after all, an “originalist” of sorts, a devotee of Ruhollah Khomeini. He was also a government player in the early 80s, during which time Iran created Hizbollah. This time around, he was merely the best the young population, hungering for actual Western-style freedom and modernity, could do as a symbol of their yearning.
Bottom line: the nuke program and the repression will continue.
