The consensus seems to be that the Iranian election was rigged, and I hope it was. not because I wanted Ahmadinejad to win, of course, but because if he really did win by like 60% or whatever, we really need to revise our assumptions about the attitudes of the Iranian people. Everyone says they're very pro-Western, so, if that's true, then this thing was likely rigged.
What worries me, however, is that that, and the fact that there were tens of thousands of people risking their lives to protest the election results seem to be the only evidence that the election was rigged. Nobody has any real numbers and the UN wasn't there monitoring the elections, so we have no hard data to support this suspicion.
Also if this election was rigged, then the government has been telling some pretty blatant and audacious lies. Lies that even they should have known nobody would swallow. And if they're going to lie with such daring, then any benefit of the doubt that I was giving Ahmadinejad regarding his claims that the Iranian nuclear program was only for civilian purposes just went out the window.
