I've been following the coverage of the Iranian elections all day on Twitter; that'll continue tomorrow. I've got links to some of the best Iranian-based sources, and to the courageous American journalists, like Bill Keller and Jim Scuitto, who are finding ways to break through the Iranian coverage ban. I'm @marcambinder. Sign up -- you won't get spammed, and you will get unfiltered insight. Also: Andrew has been blogging up a storm all day. Read every post.
Questions for the next week include: did the American media stand down? (I say no, but lots of other people say yes.) What are Khamenei's intentions? How foreseeable was the plan to rig elections? Is it AT ALL possible that Ahmadinejad actually won by, say, 51%, but that his totals were inflated? Is the outpouring of protest (Green Revolution) more of an important development than the "re-election."?
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Jun 13 2009, 10:55 pm
Twittering The Iran Election -- And The Coverage
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» Iran’s Election: Will There “Be Blood” And Will Its “Revolution” Be Twittered? from The Moderate Voice
As Iran is pitchforked into the international headlines, with new dramatic headlines seemingly emerging by the mine, the focus is on the meaning and consquences of election results now being widely perceived as being ham-handedly phoney. Here are four ... [Read More]







Is it at all possible that the election wasn't rigged, given that evidence supporting this is scant and inferential? No one's asking this question, and it seems an obvious one in light of Venezuela in 2004. It hasn't prove difficult for an opposition party in a country governed by someone the West generally doesn't like to invent a convincing case for fraud. It's particularly easy in cases where information is at a premium, which was the case in Venezuela also.
The converse to this is that evidence for fraud is overlooked when it's presented by oppositions that we don't prefer - Mexico 2006.
The solution in Iran isn't to give what might be a small minority the moral support to be slaughtered (because we likely don't have the courage to provide physical support to back it up). The best idea is to encourage a new election monitored by an impartial international agency; if it was really such a landslide, the results will be repeated and certified.
I hope that Moussavi's claim in absence of any evidence of a landslide on his part is right, but there's a strong case that the media in this case isn't being skeptical enough (when they aren't ignoring the story all together).
The Iranian government has imposed a blackout of news, images and commentary eminating from within Iran. Military geographic information including Iranian Military city plans, Tehran vector data,large scale topographic maps and Iranian National Naval nautical charts are immediately available at:
Iranian National (IRGC) topographic maps and city plans
Iranian Navy Nautical Charts
Tehran Vector City Plans