After several extensions of voting hours, the polls have still not closed. Both sides are claiming 60% of the vote.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that a more moderate Iran will mean a quicker withdraw from Iraq.

EDIT: Iran presidential challenger's office attacked (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090612/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iran_election)

I'll believe in a "moderate" in Iran when the mullahs have been effectively deposed. Once their influence is severly curtailed, it might actually become possible to talk about a "moderate" Iran. Till then, this election isn't much different from your average commie election in the old USSR. The names change, but the song remains effectively the same. Besides, your "savior" has already declared a partial pullout by mid 2010 and pretty much completely by 2011-2 or so (not fast enough for leftie loons, but still pretty quick). Just in time for elections. Hmm....

I'll believe in a "moderate" in Iran when the mullahs have been effectively deposed. Once their influence is severly curtailed, it might actually become possible to talk about a "moderate" Iran. Till then, this election isn't much different from your average commie election in the old USSR. The names change, but the song remains effectively the same. Besides, your "savior" has already declared a partial pullout by mid 2010 and pretty much completely by 2011-2 or so (not fast enough for leftie loons, but still pretty quick). Just in time for elections. Hmm....

By moderate, I'm thinking Gorbachev vs say Brezhnev (dunno if that was what Achilles was thinking). Even in the USSR there were moderates and there were hard-liners. Uh, "Savior"?

By moderate, I'm thinking Gorbachev vs say Brezhnev (dunno if that was what Achilles was thinking). Even in the USSR there were moderates and there were hard-liners.Precisely. I would like to believe that there are at least a few people in Iran who see it as being in their best interest to at least try to get along with others.

Uh, "Savior"?Tot's rhetoric. Best way around it is the ignore list.

Uh, "Savior"?

Just tweaking him over the purple prose often used by a fawning media to frame the image they wish to present of the current president. There seems to be a definite sort of cult of personality that surrounds this man. Definitely stronger than any sense one quite gets about the right's adulation of Reagan and probably on par with the reverence that many on the left have of FDR.

Looks like Achmedinijad (sp?) probably won. If so no surprise. But unless the mullahs actually change their stripes, the face change would have had little meaning beyond perhaps the type of rhetoric used. As I said, the players would change, but the song would remain the same.

US rejects victory claim by Iran's Ahmadinejad (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090614/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_us_iran)

The U.S. on Saturday refused to accept hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's claim of a landslide re-election victory in Iran and said it was looking into allegations of election fraud. Rest of the story is available via the link above.

US rejects victory claim by Iran's Ahmadinejad (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090614/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_us_iran)

Rest of the story is available via the link above.
After the last presidential election in Iran I was sure it would be some time until Iran ever moved in the right direction, Lebanon looked like a much more likely candidate for throwing out the theocratic cocksuckers, and become a free country. Now it looks like Iran might get its chance to move toward freedom ahead of much more moderate countries.

Made for a good BBC world service listening while driving aimlessly around rural Wisconsin.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess....more sanctions, with "teeth". It's the same old game. Tough rhetoric and little else is likely for the forseeable future. With Khamenie apparently in his corner, doesn't seem like much is likely to change.

It's about time that the Iranian people are motivated enough to give a damn about their future, rather than silently resenting the government. The polls were obviously rigged, and the government's nationwide communications blackout gives it away completely.

The way that I see it, if enough people rise up and protest, and if the government attempts to suppress them with enough brutal and blatant violence, then they'll have enough international pressure on their ass to submit, though that seems extremely unlikely.

Even if violent revolution does happen to overthrow the government, another authoritarian junta will just prop itself up to replace it. Iran has always had some asshat in power, either secular or theocratic.

Pity the Iranian military doesn't borrow a page from the Turks and throw the theocrats out on their ass whenever they get into power.

Considering the blowback from our first "intervention" in Iran, it's unlikely that our government will be doing anything to help the Iranian people regardless of what they want.

Can't believe I missed this one. Well, I hadn't been here in a while.

Hey, Ahmedinejad was cursing us for our coverage of the event. Us being USA and England. Honestly, though, more power to their people. All the internet and mobile devices showing the face of their brutality and cutting the legs out from underneath them (credibility wise) every time the "crack down", I'd say the veil has fallen.

As for now, we haven't heard anything in a couple weks. :( Real life rarely has a happy ending--or at least one without being a catch 22 in some way. Power to their people, though.