Who won in Iran's Election? Kamenei

Our friend, Robert Mayer of PublisPundit is getting some great coverage of his reports on the Iranian polling stations in the US. He was so effective that the regime canceled its Tuscon polling station near his home yesterday. They apparently feared a repeat of the past week's publicity. Yesterday is made an update, here. He also reported on the failure of the mainstream media to report effectively on yesterdays boycott, here.

Today, he posted a few thoughts on the (s)election results: READ MORE

Let’s get one thing straight: whether it was Rafsanjani or Ahmadinejad who was selected to win, it doesn’t really matter. When looking at Iran, one only has to know that irregardless of anything, the Guardian Council and Supreme Leader Khamenei in particular control the political levers of the country. Michael Ledeen puts it eloquently, much better than I at two in the morning:

Please keep two basic facts in mind as this melodrama unfolds: Neither Rafsanjani nor Ahmadinejad has any intention of altering the basic structure of the Islamic Republic, nor of “liberalizing” Iranian society (the Reich was not notably more “moderate” after Hitler crushed the SA, was it?). Both are known murderers; one way of evaluating the outcome of today’s events is that the next Iranian president will be wanted for murder either in two countries (Ahmadinejad — Austria and Germany) or in just one (Rafsanjani — Germany). This is not a fight over the future of the country; it’s a power struggle within the tyrannical elite.

This fight has been epitomized in the past week through all manner of scandalous happenings. Over here, Rafsanjani is buying votes. Over there, Basij forces loyal to Ahmadinejad are tearing down campaign posters, beating up protestors, and “interfering” in the ballots. Most notable about the latter is the complicity of Guardian Council representatives, which suggests that Rafsanjani was dumped long before Reuters started calling him papa.

To those of us who know Rafsanjani’s background, we know that he isn’t the “centrist” that he has been portrayed as being. But because of the mass coverage to the rest of the world, Rafsanjani was the pragmatic, “moderate” face of the Iranian regime. What is so scary is that Khamenei, realizing that the gravest and closest threat to the regime is coming from the inside, is ready to pull off the mask and take off the gloves by choosing Ahmadinejad. You want pragmatic? Khamenei now openly controls all elected functions of the government; headed by the most extreme, fascistic few in Iranian society. This is a battle for all-out totalitarian survival, and it is beginning anew with the revival of the Islamic revolution.

It’s only a matter of time now before the liberal forces inside of Iran are cut off at the knees and shot in the head. This election alone has determined the future of hundreds of thousands of families; willingly escape, or unwillingly be trapped.

But make no mistake. Ahmadinejad was not selected by accident.