I reiterate what I've said before: an Ahmadinejad victory is good for Israel, because it will keep sanctions in place against Iran. Mousavi is no "reformer" -- he's been part of the Iranian leadership since the Islamic Revolution in 1979 -- but the West perceives him as a great democratic reformer and had he won, would very likely have greatly reduced the sanctions. But this great public show has an added benefit: it demonstrates quite clearly to the world that Iran is in turmoil, it is an incredibly unstable regime and it is time to take Iran to task with respect to its nuclear program. Pursuing Obama's program of "reaching out" to Iran is the wrong way to go; we should be working to shut them down.

Ahmedinjad and his entire crew of Mullahs and Ayatollahs are implacable enemies of Israel. Iran was much less threatening to Israel during Rafsanjani and Khatami. Neither the much-touted sanctions nor a military strike nor anything short of a complete collapse of the Islamosfascist regime in Iran will prevent that country from attaining their goal of a nuclear weapon. However, you are right, Obama's outreach program has made the situation far worse.

This "defeat" of Moussavi might be and hopefully will be great, not only for the Iranian people, but also for all of the middle east. This might just lead up to the over throw of Khamenei and the theocratic pharse in Iran. I am wishful and hopeful that Iran will one day become a truly democratic nation. IF that happens, the extremism in Iraq, Syria and 'Palestine' would die a natural death, as the terrorists would suddenly no longer have a nation-state supporting there activities. Unite young people of Iran! Work Democracy!!!!

No. Rafsanjani and Khatami were just as virulently opposed to the existence of the State of Israel as Ahmadinejad is, they just knew how to keep the rhetoric down to a level acceptable to the West. Ahmadinejad has really poor impulse control; Rafsanjani and Khatami did not. But that doesn't change the facts on the ground ... a strident Ahmadinejad is the best way to ensure that the sanctions against Iran remain securely in place and, perhaps, made even more stringent.

but this is a savage regime with all the means of repression at its disposal, and a certain Obama isn't giving the rebels a shred of backing. It's difficult to say Hizballah was defeated by Israel when by now it has three times as many missiles and much more military strength. Hamas was beaten temporarily but is far from down, and we scampered out of the Strip without rescuing Shalit.

religious fanatics. The old people with the crazy desire to kill everyone not like them are losing power to the girls that want to wear lipstick instead of a burka. The men want to have sex before getting married. The old hoots are losing control and may they all croak soon.

The others have his ideas and believe what ever Ahmadi say but they keep their mouth secure, it is war to get Presidency in Iran and any change dose not make any difference for Israel, in the end the extreme in Iran will get more power and Ahmadinejad will be President for another 4 years, and it is Ahmadinejad that will proof that Obama speech in Egypt was wrong .

No, the men want to be able to get married. A young man can't because he doesn't have a job so he can't afford to move out of his parents home. Iranians have been sick of this evil dictatorship for a long time. They want freedom and opportunity. They have been quiet until now because they were afraid of getting thrown into Evian Prison. I am hoping that now they will overthrow the regime. That will be good for all of us. I don't think the people there will stand for another dictatorship. It's the best hope for them getting rid of the nukes peacefully. They are reading the internet. We should all be encouraging them. It will give them hope to know that the world is watching and supports them.

We all seen the images and read the news about iran recently. I for one understand the natural tendency of people to desire the independence of liberty to conduct their lives as they see fit. I am not disparging the iranian people for protesting the recent election. However, is anyone asking the hard questions, given that Iran's revolutionary stand towards the world has been driven by 30 years of "Death to America", Iran's political intrigue seeking hedgemonity over its Arab neighbors and its nuclear program. Make no mistake, 30 years of theoracy under the leadership of religious hardliners of the Revolution is not going to turn over and walk away simple because the will of the people has taken to the streets. The hard questions we need to be asking is what happens if the protesters prevail without a fundemental change in the theoracy. Is international diplomacy over the nuclear question going to treat with Iran as a "new" Iran? Could it be argued by other internation powers that sanctions and UN resolutions need to be tempored down, it is a new iran after all. How does this new Iran fit into the desires of other world leaders to have package soundbites fit a preceived "we doged a looming crisis" by having diplomacy prevail, it is after all a new iran, an iran that has seen people power challenge the ruling establishment? Get the drift, could Iran's clerical establishment be gambling that by having a manufactured domestic power struggle over this election, the bet is if the ruling theocracy reverses the election, the central contentions over Iran image in the world will be picked up by Obama as a responce of unclencing its fist when in reality nothing has change and its been a ploy. Nothing can be easiler for the ruling establishment to bend to the will of the people, which seems to be nothing more than to have their candiate win, the govt. controlls the tempo of when to make this reversal, all the clerics have to do is a wink and a nod and everything is back to square one over the outstanding issue of its nuclear program. To have a strong international drive to break iran of its nuclear ambitions from that moment forward does not need me to write the bad press. Inaddition if this is a ploy on the part of the theocracy, it serves as a model for countries like Egypt, Turkey Jordan and Gulf Sates to challenge the power structures of governance. It is an unknown, given that this political struggle in Iran is occuring on the likely eve of an Iranian bomb, miscalculation has its done sides, while if genuine the advantage to advancing solutions in the mideast are huge. I don't know, possibly the right thing to do is articulate to the iranian people and govt that the effort to get iran to abandon it nuclear enrichment program will proceed as if this domestic power struggle in iran didn't occur and the resolve of the international community will proceed. Now is not the time to sit back and wait, since the likihood of iran having to crack down hard will most definately turn its image in the world agianst it and play into the hands of those seeking to prevent an iranian bomb. While on the other hand having an appearance of challenging the theoracy and having the popular will of the people prevail gives the theoracy leverage on the worlds stage.

I'm worried that Ahmedinjad, in his quest to retain power, may fabricate some crisis to cause the country to rally around him and give him an excuse to impose harsh martial law. I would NOT put it past Ahmedinjad to fabricate an excuse that could include the use of nuclear weapons by Iran. A dictator who has access to nuclear weapons, and is trying to hang onto power, is very dangerous. Although we must remember that G-d is in control, no matter how crazy things get! Excellent article, by the way.

immediately after the "election results" came in from iran, i tried to post your [syrian] joke here...who knows why but ynet didnt like it...

The comments by Bechor are not supported by the facts. The omly pre-election survey were shown in the washinton Post and concluded Ahmadinejah had 66% support. The actual result of 63% was within statistical limiys. The Iranian election was not rigged but a true representation of the democratic choice of the people. The protestors at less than 1% of voters are primarily an elitist group of university students, and are not representaive of the great majority of Iranians inspite of massive pro-western media coverage and inaccurate personal comment of the likes of Bechor.

In the 1970's who would have ever believed that in the not so distant future the Soviet Union would fall? Well, it did and although Russian democracy could use a lot of improving it's still a hell of a lot better now than what was there before. I have been predicting for a long time that sooner than we expect, the Iranian people would bring down this regime. Most Iranians love the USA because the Americans (Barak Obama excepted) stand against the hated dictatorship. When you see images on tv of Iranians shouting death to America it's usually staged. I have heard that the gov forces civil servants to go to those demonstrations or they could lose their jobs. Iranians are sick of the bad economy and of having religion shoved down their throats. Young people can't get married because they don't have jobs and can't move out of their parent's house. If the mullahs did one good thing in 30 years is that they have just about wiped out illiteracy in that country. The people are smart and educated. They didn't protest until now because they were afraid of Evien Prison. I don't think they will stand for another dictatorship. I look forward to good things from Iran if they succeed in overthrowing the regime. No regime can hold power forever if the masses of the people are against it.

Excellent article and analysis. Pity this kind of professional and lucid material has to coexist with Islamo-Leftist rants coming from brainless terror apologetics and self-flaggelating pimpled Sunday-Anarchists! Guy Bechor material is first class! This is what quality journalism means: informing the public about facts, not inflating the ego of self-reighteous, self-hating imbeciles with obscene political correctness suicide tendencies.

As a person that has experienced a close relationship with a citizen of the former soviet union, his statement that the worst thing to befall the world was the fall of the soviet union, we where such good enemies, now who knows what? still rings in my thoughts. In the "Grand Game of Ideologies" second place has no consolation prize. Yes, I too would like to see Iran become part of the leading world, yet I am very pragmatic to the intrigues played in this game. The issue of iranian nuclear bomb, is not so much an issue of having the bomb that is the worry of those that are charge with the contingency planning. the issue these folks deal with is the premise of how could it be used. That has always been the issue with nukes, not that they exist but the methodology of using nukes. If you think, the doctrine of a nuclear power is to have the bomb for the sake of prestigue, you are saddly mistaken. Once, a country has the ability of having the bomb, it runs smack up against M.A.D. M.A.D. is the only thing that has prevented the use of nukes. Like it or not.period, end of discussion. Now to put that little fact into prespective, a country which advocates terrorism, has used terror to impose its revolutionary goals, is ideological the anthesis of modern liberal civil liberties and is preventing others from documenting whether or not nuclear power technologies are in fact only applied to a non-weapons program, the so called peace use, then my friend what we have here is a recipe for how can the deterent of M.A.D. be circumvented. Hence my statement, a strong message needs to be sent to the ruling establishment in Iranian, no matter what the outcome of the post election, the world will still be at square one with "We don't trust Iran theoracy with ability to enrich Uranium or run nuclear reactors that produce Plutonium."

iran think it is a great country in middle east they see that the arabs are little but islam is great .they want to have islam flage but sure they do not afraid of israil or americans ..i think they are wrong .the flag of islam must be with arabs .in kuran god say more than 6 times ..it is arabic kuran and arabic judge and arabic tounge

YOUR TALK REGARDING IRAN HAS ALSO CROSSED MY MIND. THEY HAVE AS THE FOXES PLANED MANY EXITS. 'WHATEVER WAY IT TAKES IN IRAN, IT IS AL PLANNED IN ADVACE. Orao.

Teh mullah regime came in part because the shah was installing gold toilets in his bathrooms, and was a weak import placed there by the US. If he was his own man, he would have eliminated the leading cleric rabblerousers. Having the coward carter as US president at that time did not help as he was afraid of any military action. Ahamdinejad is a fraud with a phony Ph.d in transportation engineering. If you watch him in debate with moussavi, you see both of them are constrained by the islamic leader because they repeat certain rubbish just as the communists did when brezhnev was in power. israel has its own version of ahmadinejad-ehud olmert. He denies all accusatioins- that he is incompetent and vengeful big mouth, whether by shalits, winograd, bibi.He denies corruption and crook charges by police related to his ripping off charities, taking cash from the miserable bore talansky or doling out favors. he attacks mazuz and lador for being unfair. he stalls for time to drag out proceedings by exaggerating his prostate condition. His lies know no bounds.So many people attack olmert that all the accusations are trune-olmert is a scumbag. On top of all of this corruption and incompetence, olmert's sons ran away from the military or reserve duties as ehud himself exaggerated childhood injuries to avoid combat duties. He is worse than ahmadinejad. Olmert is a total fraud, liar and coward. Ahmadinejad is a liar and fraud but not a coward.That is why he is dangerous.

Iraina people who voted from outside the country- and there are many of them- almost unanimously voted in favor of Mousavi.......... I bet their votes were not even counted. How can you say the election was not rigged? Iran did not have international observers, it limited western media coverage- . IF everything had been above board, why the secrecy? They did not want the West to find out. Protestors and students less than 1%?- You are joking- they are the majority of voters. Living in Afghanistan- how would you know? Must be the authority on democracy for sure!?!? The entire Iranian government as it is now, is corrupt, a mass of fanatical extremists influenced and brain washed by equally fanatical mullahs with a one track mind.