From RMP’s link to Newsweek ["Feeding the Beast: What Ahmadinejad's win means for Iran, Israel and the United States”], http://www.newsweek.com/id/201934

The most obvious winner is Israel's right-wing Likud government, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman. […] Mousavi's touchy-feely image as a moderate reformist would have [made it ] harder politically, for Netanyahu to keep open the option of a military attack to set back the nuclear program. When it looked like Mousavi might win, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC ) started sending out e-mails to American journalists and opinion makers insisting that Mousavi was a very bad guy, too. […] Ahmadinejad's solid reputation as a Jew-baiting Holocaust denier will make it easier for Netanyahu to frustrate American attempts at dialogue with Tehran. And for the same reason, in political terms, Iran under Ahmadinejad is a perfect target should Netanyahu decide war is his best or only option. […]”

What’s the possibility that certain foreign entities intervened to influence this election in order to assure that Ahmadinejad got reelected? There are some pretty powerful people in both Israel and the US who seem to be determined to attack Iran. Afterall, the CIA engaged in a large scale operation to sway the Italian elections of 1948, and kept doing it until at least 1972.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._Mark_Wyatt

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January 10, 1982-NYT reviews the paperback edition of Ledeen’s book: Debacle; The American Failure in Iran. “[…] This collaboration, of an editor of the Washington Quarterly and a former Foreign Service officer with considerable experience in the Middle East is a brief, well-written account of the relations between the United States and Iran in 1978-79, during and after the fall of the Shah. The authors attribute the political disaster to disarray in the Carter Administration and our foreign policy apparatus, especially our officials' inclination to give priority to ''an abstract human-rights doctrine'' over ''a geopolitical concept of the national interest. […]'' http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F70E1EFB3D5C0C738DDDA80894DA484D81

1996-Mr.Wurmser, Mr. Feith and Mr. Perle write "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," the paper contained the kernel of a breathtakingly radical vision for a new Middle East. By waging wars against Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, the paper asserted, Israel and the U.S. could stabilize the region. Later, the neoconservatives argued that this policy could democratize the Middle East. (U) …a paper calling for the overthrow of Mr. Hussein to enhance Israel's security.” (D) "It was the seeds of a new vision."- Meyrav Wurmser (U)

July 10, 1996-Benjamin Netanyahu-(Israel’s PM), addresses joint session of Congress. Borrowing from “A Clean Break”, he calls for “democratization" of terrorist states in the Middle East and warned that peaceful means might not be sufficient. War might be unavoidable.” He adds Iran to the mix. (U)

June 3, 1997-Project for a New American Century publishes it’s “Statement of Principles” http://www.newamericancentury.org/statementofprinciples.htm …“We seem to have forgotten the essential elements of the Reagan Administration's success: a military that is strong and ready to meet both present and future challenges; a foreign policy that boldly and purposefully promotes American principles abroad; and national leadership that accepts the United States' global responsibilities.”… Elliott Abrams, Gary Bauer, William J. Bennett, Jeb Bush, Dick Cheney, Eliot A. Cohen, Midge Decter, Paula Dobriansky, Steve Forbes, Aaron Friedberg, Francis Fukuyama, Frank Gaffney, Fred C. Ikle, Donald Kagan, Zalmay Khalilzad, I. Lewis Libby, Norman Podhoretz, Dan Quayle, Peter W. Rodman, Stephen P. Rosen, Henry S. Rowen, Donald Rumsfeld, Vin Weber, George Weigel, Paul Wolfowitz

November 2001-"The overthrow of the first theocratic revolutionary Muslim state [Iran] and its replacement by a moderate or secular government … would be no less important a victory in this war than the annihilation of bin Laden."-Eliot Cohen (PNAC member) (“Wall Street Journal”) (U)

September 4, 2002- “a piece by Ledeen appeared in The Wall Street Journal on September 4, suggesting that, in addition to Iraq, the governments of Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia should be overthrown… One can only hope that we turn the region into a cauldron, and faster, please. If ever there were a region that richly deserved being cauldronized, it is the Middle East today."” (B)

May 2, 2003-Iran sends to Washington “the grand bargain” for negotiating differences, just before a meeting in Geneva between Iran's U.N. ambassador, Javad Zarif, and neocon Zalmay Khalilzad, then a senior director at the National Security Council. “According to a report by Gareth Porter in The American Prospect, Iran offered to take ‘decisive action against any terrorists (above all, al-Qaeda) in Iranian territory." In exchange, Iran wanted the U.S. to pursue "anti-Iranian terrorists’—i.e., the MEK. Specifically, Iran offered to share the names of senior al-Qaeda operatives in its custody in return for the names of MEK cadres captured by the U.S. in Iraq.”… the Bush administration simply declined to respond. "We're not interested in any grand bargain," -Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton (U)

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Sources:

(B) The War They Wanted, The Lies They Needed http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2006/07/yellowcake200607

(D) How Pair's Finding on Terror Led To Clash on Shaping Intelligence, 4/28/04 http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?

(U) From the Wonderful Folks Who Brought You Iraq, by Craig Unger, March 2007 http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/03/whitehouse200703