UPDATED: Iran’s Election Results Deemed Questionable, Logical
H/t + cutline credit: Andrew Sullivan.
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Dueling interpretations are the inevitable result when outsiders attempt to decipher the indecipherable.
Cases in point: this post from Dave Schuler, arguing that Ahmadinejad’s win should not surprise us, and this post from Renard Sexton, arguing that there are legitimate reasons to question the results.*
Meanwhile, the protests in Iran are not only continuing, they seem to be gaining momentum.
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* With all due respect to Schuler, Sexton’s post strikes me as the more persuasive. Schuler focuses on a single poll; Sexton employs what seems to be a much more robust statistical analysis. Moreover, Schuler relies on this op-ed in today’s WaPo by Ken Ballen and Patrick Doherty. Juan Cole and Nate Silver (via Andrew Sullivan) question Ballen and Doherty.
8 Responses to “UPDATED: Iran’s Election Results Deemed Questionable, Logical”
I don't think Ahmedenejad really won. Why would there be so much uproar and protest if he won fair and square?
-Nikki-
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Wow, an election a mere formality where the results are predetermined. Kinda reminds me of the 2000 election in the USA. Remember Jeb Bush in FLA? The Supreme Court? Hanging chads? Polls difficult or impossible to access in FLA in democratic neighborhoods?
There's an old saying, I think it's from the The Old Testament. “Before you complain of the splinter in your neighbor's eye, remove the log from your own..” Something like that…
first, regarding iran's polling and trends?
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/06/polling-…
saying “of course” seems rather uninformed to me…
second, to say that someone like mousavi “of course” pulled a miniscule percentage of the vote in his own district also seems rather uninformed to me…
ahmedinijab may have “won”. but these results are quite obviously tweaked to me. they may have panicked and pulled something, when it would have been close or he would have lost. but there's no “of course” here.
Just a thought. There have been so many comments in the past along the lines of “they'll never change” and “it's naive to think negotiation will work” and other such views that featured Iran as an unchanging extension of Ahmadinejad or Khamenei. Things change. And even if Iran slaps down protest as China, change is inevitable. I think Obama's on the right track; keep America from being seen by its young people as “the great Satan.” Stop with the “axis of evil” crap that only pulls moderates into nationalistic zeal, just as it does for our moderates.
There's a hunger for change in Iran among its young and it's women; a change, ultimately, that will not be denied.
I'm actually surprised and disappointed nobody here, even though it's a lefty site, has remarked about the obvious. One reason for the election to be rigged and why the rulers want to continue with Amhedinejad is that they want to challenge or “test” Obama and his administration as well as to maintain their aggressive and confrontational (especially) posture toward the West. The most obvious geopolitical explanation is clearly evident here! (The more intriguing and challenging question is to what extent there is a similar set of motives with Iranian domestic policy, based on a strongly anti-reform conservative stance by the leaders.)
To correct a lower-quality issue I ancitipated I'd encounter here [rolling eyes]: The Dems tried in 2000 to steal what they lost and failed, Silhouette. The Dems acted like Iran or eastern European nations. You are corrected _again_.
“Things change.”
I believe they will in Iran, eventually. Note that this election's interference may about the leadership being fundamentally opposed to change (it's not that hard to see that as their stance and world view).
“I think Obama's on the right track; keep America from being seen by its young people as 'the great Satan.' Stop with the 'axis of evil' crap that only pulls moderates into nationalistic zeal, just as it does for our moderates.”
There has been no “nationalistic zeal” here in the USA. There's nothing wrong with defense of ourselves and our interests. “Nationalism” is not an evil thing (with PC exceptions for Hamas and Palestinians).
So many Iranians have _not_ hated us (or even our government, most of the time) and this has been so long before Obama has assumed office. What improvements Obama can make are _bonuses_, are _additional_ kinds of progress (assuming they are actually good achievements). To get Iranians en masse to oppose or be angry at us would actually take either massive air strikes or (in my opinion would have take something truly as extreme as) an actual invasion (ground attack), which few have advocated we do, for many good reasons. An invasion would promptly convert forty million Iranian adults and as many children as could understand what was happening from friends of the USA and its people into angry patriotic-Iranian enemies of us, and I believe an invasion (as opposed to air strikes limited to government or oil-infrastructure targets) would harm relations long-term among the people.
DLS: There has been no “nationalistic zeal” here in the USA.
Still laughing about that. You are so blinded by your ideology, man, that you can't even see how “with us or with the terrorists”, trashing people for not wearing flag pins, “they hate us for our freedoms” and the very obvious fanning of fear and hatred of “other” are “nationalist zeal”. Throw in some careless “Crusades” comments, and “God's war” BS and you add religious fervor to nationalist zeal to whip up a frenzy of hating them. It has the same effect on “them”. We became an existential threat, and continue to do so when we talk of bombing Iran. The obvious reaction over there, because they love their country too, is to hate us back. Obama is turning that around.