Iran Election Irregularities Update

As of this posting, still no reply back from MSNBC.com. Of course, I'm not surprised.

However, Diego Jimenez tweeted me this link to a BBC Q&A article on the election.

First off, here are the reasons for claims of voting irregularities:


"The way the result was announced was very unusual. It came out in blocks of millions of votes, in percentages, rather than being announced province-by-province as in past elections.

And as the blocks of votes came in, the percentages for each candidate changed very, very little. That suggested that Mr Ahmadinejad did equally well in rural and urban areas. Conversely, it suggested that the other three losing candidates did equally badly in their home regions and provinces.

This overturns all precedents in Iranian politics and there has been no explanation, despite repeated questions, from the authorities.

It is all very suspicious. But it does not necessarily mean there has been widespread electoral fraud. For example, a group of international pollsters did an independent telephone survey three weeks ago which suggested a two-to-one level of popular support for Mr Ahmadinejad over Mr Mousavi, with the other candidates on less than two percent each."

So, we have international pollsters predicting an Ahmadinejad win. We have suspicious circumstances with questions going unanswered. And we have the fact that there may not necessarily have been widespread electoral fraud.

We also have two powerful leaders with many followers vying for a top parliamentary position. As numerous commentators (and Pres. Obama) have said, Ahmadinejad and Mousavi's policy positions are, in effect, not much different from each other.

Could this be a case of a sore loser using the power of his popularity and multitude of followers to gain the upper hand? From the same BBC article:

"But there are two things happening at the moment. There are the street demonstrations and then there is a tense power struggle between leading figures in the ruling elite as well."

Two leading, elite rulers are struggling for power. What would make Mousavi not pull the "voting irregularity" and "fraud" cards out to use in his favor? Especially when he is well-aware of Ahmadinejad's global unpopularity and the effect global media will have on promoting his view of the election, however inaccurate it may be?

The fact that 99% of the coverage has been on protesters and virtually none on actual election statistics, pre and post polling, and vote-count evidence may signal that Mousavi's bluff has turned into a trump card.

Where is investigative journalism when you need it?

When does karma assert itself?

The New York Times reported today that all 16 American intelligence agencies say Iran ended its nuclear weapons program in 2003. That's almost five years ago...

On August 17, 2004, John Bolton, then Undersecretary for Arms Control and International Security said during a speech at the Hudson Institute, "Iran is pursuing two separate paths to nuclear weapons, one that would use highly enriched uranium for nuclear weapons and one that would use plutonium."

A report here, from McClatchy Newspapers on November 4, 2007, says that President Bush and Vice-President Cheney speak of Iran's nuclear weapons program as fact:

"I've told people that if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them (Iran) from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon," he said Oct. 17 at a news conference.
"Our country, and the entire international community, cannot stand by as a terror-supporting state fulfills its grandest ambitions," Cheney warned on Oct 23. "We will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon."

I was watching CNN this morning and there were various reports about the above cited New York Times article and the fact that all United States spy agencies agree that Iran has not tried to make nuclear weapons since 2003. Amazingly, none of these news stories I saw even mentioned the fact that Bush and Cheney have very recently said just the opposite. Where is the accountability and the outrage at being lied to yet again?

How can these "journalists" devote an amazing amount of time to Hillary Clinton's cackle on various TV news magazines, but not question the Executive Branch's assertions of Iranian nuclear capability when it flies in the face of a National Intelligence Estimate? Should this not be another nail in the coffin of the Bush Administrations' credibility?