A Stunning Reversal

I do apologize for the lack of updates over the weekend.

Lots of news out of Iran. Hundreds of protests in Tehran over the weekend over the election "results." Andrew Sullivan has done a fantastic job of tracking both the protests and the harsh and brutal tactics imposed by the Iranian police force in response. News today that Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has ordered a clerical review of the election results. This is a stunning change, as earlier Khamenei twice certified the election results as valid, on one occasion referring to them as a "divine assessment."

We've also seen an explosion in individual coverage of these events via social networking sites, specifically Twitter. Sullivan has many updates from Twitter feeds in Iran.

My assessment of all of this? There was a level of election fraud here, but those committing the fraud overreached. A tightly contested election with a close result, perhaps just above the threshold for a runoff election, would be believable. A blowout like the one claimed is not. Khamenei is now trying to put the genie back in the bottle with this clerical review. I am almost positive the results will stand, perhaps with a downward adjustment to Ahmadinejad's vote totals.

And still, the chants will rain down from the rooftops.