[DJPePe]

Originally Posted by zymote

So my sister and her boyfriend were in town for the weekend. He's an intelligence analyst for a major NGO, is an expert on the middle east, and spends quite a bit of time in the region. According to what he said, pretty much everybody in the know was well aware that the election was completely rigged. Apparently, there were reports from inside Iran that a lot of ballots were machine folded - the ruling party had been mass manufacturing fake ballots to stuff the boxes with.

What will become of it is anybody's guess, but IIRC, the last time the students there were this riled up was in 1979. Either way, I don't think it'll be too much of a change with regards to foreign relations (except for all that Holocaust nonsense). What would be important, however, is having the Iranian economy shift to embrace free markets. Their financial system is completely in the shitter, due to the fact that they derive 85% of their income from oil and have eschewed importing things like autos, in favor of producing them domestically at an astronomical expense. Having an Iran that's not going broke and scared shitless of the 150,000 US troops they've got on either side of them will go a long way towards dissipating nuclear tensions. Remember, they've got a shitload of oil, and our reasons for invading Iraq must really make them wet the bed at night.

What about 10 years ago? Would you say these protests are worse than the unrest in July 1999?