Iran Goes Florida? Not Quite: Ahmadinejad Wins

The results are in. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the incumbent Iranian president (who has not, so far, denied that a man was murdered at the Holocaust Museum this week) won reelection.

American media are reporting that he's merely claiming victory, as is Mir Hossein Mousavi, the challenger the same media have decided, in a fit of collective amnesia and fantasy, to call a "moderate," although Mousavi is merely Ahmadinejad without the intellectual lobotomy.

“I am the absolute winner of the election by a very large margin,” Moussavi said. “It is our duty to defend people’s votes. There is no turning back.” But whatever Mousavi says, it's what official state media says that matters most. Or more, at this juncture. And what official state media says is that Ahmadinejad is the winner.

"According to the latest results of Iran’s Presidential Election, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has got 65.96 percent of the votes," IRNA, Iran's state news agency, was reporting just after midnight Saturday (GMT).

"Head of the Elections Headquarters Kamran Daneshjoo told reporters Saturday morning that 31,369 ballot boxes had been counted until 3:40 am which were 68 percent of the total boxes. According to Daneshjoo, out of 24,122,777 counted votes, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has got 15,913,256 votes which constitutes 65.96 percent of the total counted votes. Mir Hossein Moussavi has got 7,526,117 votes which is 31.19 percent, Mohsen Rezaee has got 470,549 votes that is 1.95 percent and Mahdi Karroubi has got only 212,855 votes which is 0.88 percent."

Ali Khamenei, the Iranian Supreme Leader (in whose hands, or at least hand--an assassination attempt in 1981 rendered him unable to clap but with one hand--the election results lie anyway), cast his ballot at 8 a.m. and promptly had all text messaging shut down in the country. He was piqued by what people were texting about him. Rumors, he called them: "Ayatollah Khamenei referred to the recent rumors that attribute certain comments to him," one of his web sites said, quoting Khamenei himself as saying: "The people must not pay attention to the rumors about the election. These rumors are spread by irresponsible individuals."

That should give you a sense of whho Khamenei was rooting for--Ahmadinejad, whom he can easily control, and whom he needs more than Mousavi. Why? Because whenever things go wrong in Iran, as they so often do nowadays, Ahmadinejad is Khamenei's perfect fall guy. Annd whenever things go right, Ahmadinejad is mastered enough that he defers to the Supreme Leader. Mousavi, while neither an ideological nor a revolutionary slouch, would be more inclined to be his own man. He and Khamenei have a history. Mousavi was Khamenei's prime minister in the 1980s. The two were not like Bonnie and Clyde, but they ruled, schemed, and apparently planned assassinations together (the late historian Theodore Draper, in his 1991 account of the Iran Contras affairs--A Very Thin Line--reports a 1985 conversation that revealed that Khamenei and Mousavi "had organized a plot to assassinate the emir of Kuwait").

The two also drifted apart at the end of the 1980s, with Khamenei replacing the Ayatollah Khomeini as Supreme Leader and Mousavi disappearing from public sight. Khamenei, in other words, would feel threatened by Mousavi's return, and may be more comfortable with the known quantity, and reliable foil, that Ahmadinejad has been. So I would take with a grain of salt this deer-in-headlight paragraph from The Times: "The ayatollah is the only person who could mediate between the two camps in the event of an open confrontation over the legitimacy of the vote. But it is not yet clear how much Mr. Khamenei knows about the situation or what role he might play."

They don't call him Supreme Leader for nothing. He knows it all. And what he doesn't know, which is as much or more than all, he makes up as he goes along. The election, like any election, is his to steal and deliver.

See Also:

• Profile: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
• Profile: Mir-Hossein Mousavi
• Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's Web Site
• Who Rules Iran? A Primer

Election Reporting Elsewhere:

• IRNA--the Official Iranian news Agency
• The Washington Post
• The New York Times
• Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: the Official Blog
• Ali Khamenei's Web Site