A fantastic comment. Yes, almost many analyst forget the occasion of the conflict, the election result. It is interesting that Musavi recently himself retreat his ask for nullifying the election knowing there is no proof of evident. Other reformists retreat before. Even persons like Abtahi who are now free on ball have not reject his statements during the so called show trial. Myself listed all claims against the election and confute every single one, hopefully it will be released soon in English.
By the way the interior ministry never released the result of every single ballot box, in this election it did! The post election conflict arose rather of the polarizing the society by the candidates, the conflict was for many political scientists in Iran foreseeable.

Of course the regime has supporter and those who try to image an isolate Islamic republic are mistake. We see no You Tube videos about masses of buses, sandwiches and so one for bringing the people. Indeed organize a state sponsor rally is much easier, but it shows than Islamic republic is still popular for many Iranian and it shows regarding the last opposition rallys that there is no possibility of revolution, though no military forces were engaged.

You wrote: “as an Iranian who lives in Iran, I must say that [An Iranian] is a government agent. Reverse his statement and it would be an almost accurate description of what I witnessed.”

In other words, you witnessed a small pro-government rally and a massive opposition rally — second in size only to the funeral of Ayatollah Khomeini.

Wow– that certainly is a difference! Any photos?

It strikes me that two objective tests can readily be conducted to validate (or not) the June 12 election results. You may be the person most qualified to respond to this, but I welcome as well a response from anyone else:

First, opposition candidates charged that their observers were barred from many polling stations. Assuming here that that occurred, it would be interesting to compare the proportion of Ahmadinejad votes from an “unobserved” polling station with the proportion of Ahmadinejad votes from an “observed” polling station in an area with similar demographics and voter profiles — the more such apples-to-apples comparisons, the better. If the proportions were much the same, a “no harm, no foul” response to this charge might be appropriate; indeed, even more could be made from such a finding: Ahmadinejad’s supporters could fairly argue: “See, we had many opportunities to commit electoral fraud at these ‘unobserved’ polling stations, but we did not do so. That strongly suggests that we did not commit electoral fraud at all.” If, on the other hand, “unobserved” ballot boxes contained a materially higher proportion of Ahmadinejad votes, the protesters might well have a valid point here.

Second, opposition candidates charged that the official vote counts ultimately released by the Interior Ministry varied (in Ahmadinejad’s favor) from the vote counts conducted in the field (i.e. at polling stations), either because Interior Ministry officials added, destroyed or changed ballots once the ballot box reached Tehran, or, according to some Moussavi aides, because those Interior Ministry officials simply fabricated new vote counts without even bothering to falsify the ballots from the polling station involved. Assuming here that that occurred (and assuming further that, as I understand to be the case, the Interior Ministry reported ballot-box-by-ballot-box results, rather than merely a single total for each candidate), it strikes me as easy enough simply to compare (1) the final, official count from a particular ballot box; and (2) the “field” count from the same ballot box (provided, of course, that opposition observers were present throughout the day and evening at the polling station involved). If an “official” count showed more votes for Ahmadinejad than are reflected in the notes of the opposition’s observer(s) at that polling station, then, rather than rely on the on-site notes from Ahmadinejad’s observer at that polling station (assuming those notes show a field count matching the official count), the disagreement might be resolved by checking the electronic record of the email or text-message sent on election night from that polling station to election headquarters in Tehran. I understand that such electronic messages were sent from thousands of polling stations on election night, and it strikes me as fair to assume that the candidates’ observers were present when such a electronic message was composed and sent, in order to ensure that the message reflected the vote count just witnessed by those observers.

I doubt that any such “tests” have been conducted, by either side, but it strikes me that each type of test would be entirely objective, quite persuasive, and easily constructed based on data that, I suspect, is still available and cannot easily be altered.

Your thoughts?

Thank you for your comment. You should note, though, that being “an Iranian who lives in Iran” would disqualify you in the eyes of those (many) who believe that reliable comments on Iran can be made only by someone whose judgment is entirely unfettered by residence in the country or any other source of actual knowledge.

“In 1979, much of the public commentary in the United States about the Iranian revolution that overthrew the Shah was characterized by disbelief that a stalwart American ally could be swept away so quickly and unexpectedly. Today, much American commentary on Iranian domestic politics is characterized by varying degrees of eagerness to see the Islamic Republic go the way of the Pahlavi dynasty—or, in a formulation that some neoconservatives prefer, the way of the Soviet Union.”

Just as previous commentary fed the belief (quite accurate, as it were) that the Shah was an American stooge, current pro-demonstrator commentary will lead to the same belief (accurate or not) about the opposition. It has the same effect as North Vietnam encouraging anti-war protesters here. Making them seem like traitors, when in fact they were absolutely right about the war.

The phenomenon that Iranian politicians use to differenciate between rhetoric and actual policies has never been understood by the West.