Tipping point Iran - Time article on fixed election plus former Revolutionary Guard head agrees

[autorank]

Don't fall for the notion that the US or any other foreign power is the force behind the Iranian election protests. First, it was a rigged election. See "Iranian Election Fraud 2009: Who Was the Real Target... and Why? " That's clear from the facts. Second, the people are risking their lives to defend their votes. The paramilitary forces in Iran are brutal and this is no joke. Finally, there comes a time when you're just fed up. We're not there yet but Iranians are and they're using their power for their own benefit. We need to support them.

Viewpoint
Reza Aslan: The Spirit of '79
By Reza Aslan Friday, Jun. 19, 2009

Never in the 30 years since that revolution has Iran experienced anything like the popular protests that we have seen in the past week. By now, the accusations of election fraud are fairly well known. It is implausible that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won in a landslide re-election. It is doubtful that he not only took the capital city, Tehran — the heart of the reformist movement — by a staggering 50% but also managed to win in Azerbaijan, the birthplace of his chief rival, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, by a 4-to-1 margin. (As an Azeri friend of mine said, this would be akin to Senator John McCain winning the African-American vote against Barack Obama.) It seems odd that the election was called so soon after the polls had closed, despite the many millions of ballots still to be counted, most of them by hand. (Read "Thirty Years After the Revolution, U.S. Still Struggling to Understand Iran.")

The young and the middle class are not the only ones outraged by these election results. Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, perhaps the second most powerful man in Iran and certainly the richest, and former President Mohammed Khatami, by far the country's most popular statesman, have both thrown their support behind the protesters. Two of Iran's highest religious authorities, the Grand Ayatullahs Hossein Ali Montazeri and Yousof Sane'i, have issued fatwas condemning acts of election fraud. Even Ahmadinejad's conservative rival, Mohsen Rezaei, a former Revolutionary Guards commander and a far more hawkish figure than Ahmadinejad, has claimed the election was rigged.

[autorank]

1. kick becaue it's important

:kick: