Here come the Iran experts

As you’ll note from every news service, something’s up in Iran. They just completed their Presidential elections and announced a big victory for regime favourite Ahmadinejad; now there are protests that the result is fraudulent. The word ‘coup’ is being bandied about.
The overall result doesn’t seem out of line with what little I know about Iran; Ahmadinejad has a lot of support out of the cities. That said, the details I’ve seen talked about certainly raise eyebrows. The reported victory margin is huge for a President whose only consistent public-image successes were in his interactions with the U.S. More alarming signs are noted by Juan Cole, such as Ahmadinejad reported as taking Tehran by over 50%. Cole is of course cautious about whether this is proof of tampering, but he concludes that it “looks to me like a crime scene”.
In any case, it is clear that the big cities are hosting a challenge to the legitimacy of the election result, and that the regime is mobilising in force to put down the dissent. If the election was stolen, there’s no way to hand it back to the rightful owner now – the regime has thrown its weight behind this and unless the Supreme Leader goes down we’re stuck with four more years of Ahmadinejad. What’s at stake now is the terms on which the regime operates from here on. Things have got a bit rougher and tighter since Khatami’s term as President but overall the Revolutionary Council and the Supreme Leader have been able to exert a lot of control relatively softly; expect that to change, and for political battles to get a lot more upfront in the coming four years.
Iran exerts a lot of power over the region, so there will be global consequences for this sequence of events. We all just have to wait for the battles to be fought and resolved. Of course, the rest of the world should be quick to demand transparency of election processes and the right to protest freely. Soft support for the relatively-reform friendly candidate Mousavi isn’t a bad idea either. Still, Ahmadinejad will be in the seat for the next four years and it’s important to keep talking with the man. He’s far more conservative than I’d like but he’s also smart and principled; we could do a lot worse than him.
And don’t get carried away. This is hardly a coup; the President of Iran isn’t even the head of state. It isn’t a civil war either and isn’t going to become one. And as dramatic as the photos of protest are, they do not tell more than a tiny part of the story.
Also worth a look: Laura Secor at the New Yorker.