And On the Other Hand...

More and more evidence is appearing to suggest that Ahmadinejad did, in fact, win the election.

Sucks, but proven fuckwits win elections all the time. I'm still on the side of the rebelling students and other reformers, though; the fact that they're probably not quite a majority lends even more integrity to their arguments and more courage to their actions. Their day will come.

I wish them the best and know that Iran's huge under-30 population will eventually inherit the government and reform the country for the better, but let me say this: Americans and other outsiders should really stop their clamoring for intervention. Moral outrage over things like this, if you're an outsider who isn't remotely affected by anything unfolding on the ground, is cheaply come by and morally worthless. No one helps the cause of Iranian liberal reformers through self-righteous delusions about the virtues and capacities of American power.

Especially given our history vis-a-vis that country: the toppling of actual election-winner and actual decent reformist Mossadegh, the support for the Shah and his secret police which led directly to Khomeini's Islamic Revolution and all the insanity that went with it, only for us to turn around and send money to the mullahs during a brief period when the Reagan Administration favored them over usual good guy Saddam Hussein in the horrific Iran-Iraq War, and finally all the idiotic saber-rattling of the Bush-Cheney years, which is what spooked the ayatollahs and led them to put Ahmadinejad in power in the first place...

The green reformers will have their day.