like obama has inherited the effects of Bush's policies towards Iran. achmedinajab's(sp)plicies have made him and his rulers more and more unwelcome.

By not legitimizing him Bush forced the Iranians to deal with him.

Plus the growing democracy in Iraq has left the Iranians wondering why they can't have a real one also.

The way I read it, and regardless of the truth of what happened in the Iranian election, all this attention in the U.S. media to Iranian politics is a net loser for the "Bomb Iran" contingent.

Even if it's proven that Mosavi lost fairly (doubtful, based on what I've read so far), all the turmoil and protest is an indication that there's a large demographic of Iranian society that wants reform and at least modest liberalization. Such complication plays poorly for U.S. right-wingers, who want to portray every last Iranian as a mouth-breathing, Jew-hating, fanatical threat to Israel - a dehumanization necessary before the neocons' long-sought bombing campaign can begin.

Either way, they lose. If a miracle occurs, and Mosavi triumphs, great. If Ahmadinajad/Khamenei remain in power, people in the West can and should argue that it's best to encourage the substantial minority of reformers, which is not accomplished through belligerent behavior.

Can you provide a source for your assertion that U.S. right-wingers believe that every last Iranian is a fanatical threat?

I just hate theocracy. Good for the Iranians if they throw the mullacracy out.

Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst.

- Thomas Paine

Now with the opposition being beaten back in Iran, the zionists are on the run. Soon Ahamadinejad will eradicate the zionist project from the world. If he isn't given a Nobel Peace Prize for that, then THAT will be a crime.

Are you one of those message board posters who write the opposite of what they're actually thinking so as to highlight the absurdity of the position? If not, are you a skinhead?

I'm going to go with skinhead. There aren't many discussions on Salon that the resident crazies can't turn into an anti-Israel rant.

There are a lot of people around here who see Israel as the clear and only bad guy in the middle east but Amercian Facist is spewing pure hate speech all over the site. I've been hitting the flag button but nothing seems to happen.

He is the artist formerly known as Electro Robot. He posts ridiculous stuff, gets banned, and creates a new name to post under. He also hates Arabs and Persians with a passion.

Oh and Farragut: Bush had nothing to do with this. Give credit to the men and women getting shot and stabbed because they want freedom, not the dude chilling at his ranch in Texas.

Can you provide any source for your implication that U.S. right wingers DON"T believe every last Iranian is a fanatical threat?

Get real. This is not a rigorous academic forum. It's a fucking chat room.

Pretty much any column by Charles Krauthammer or Clifford May would qualify for demonizing Iran, but just for starters, here's this:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/17/AR2006011700893.html

Krauthammer was running around with his hair on fire in 2006 shouting that Iran was probably just months away from having a nuclear bomb, and strongly implying that we have to do whatever's necessary to stop "apocalyptic madmen". It's a wonder he's still alive after such an attack of the vapors. Of course, if he'd had his way, many Iranians would no longer be.

So what you're saying is that if Iran's leaders were to give up their nuclear ambitions and agree to unfettered inspections that right-wingers would be disappointed because they really just wanted to bomb them all because of their race? That's one person's opinion I guess. I read the article you referenced. Krauthammer says "fanatical Islamists who we know will not be deterred from pursuing nuclear weapons." I think you are wrong to assume he was referring to all Iranians - just my opinion. I don't speak for all right-wingers so I try not to put words in their mouths.

Look at you people. For all you know this is a black op like the other "color revolutions", call this one the Green Revolution. Congress allocated $400M specifically for these kinds of games, but not a mousefart about any of that money in the fifty articles Salon has posted this morning.

It's amazing. All the establishment had to do was put a little bit of pro-freedom spin on it and you people are in a patriotic fervor cheering for yet more "revolution" in far off lands whose internal policies are 100% none of your business. But would you expect anything less from exceptional Americans that constantly feel the do-gooder's urge and meddle in everyone else's business?

What a coincidence, the congress allocates $400M for spooks to use destabilizing Iran, then magically during the next election there are signs of instability and mass protests. How convenient! I'm sure there were ZERO western NGOs involved in all of this, like the National Endowment for Democracy and other interventionist front groups.

Did all of you forget that the establishment doesn't mind telling lies to gin up support for foreign intervention? How is the hunt for Saddam's WMD coming along?

Modern fascism is much more nuanced. Not that we won't exploit the skinheads and the other useful idiots, the liberals and progressives who are, like Glenn Greenwald simply 'against it'. Whatever it is, it's evil. Bush is evil, Obama is evil the US is evil, everything's bad, everything's rotten.

Why do you think fascism is on the rise? Because between the raving Islamists and the people in the west who believe in nothing but anarchy, we step in to fill the void.

Do you deny that there has been a steady drumbeat of neocon propaganda for years regarding the alleged dangers of a nuclear-armed Iran? Ever since it became clear that Iran was the primary beneficiary of our misbegotten and mindbogglingly foolish invasion and occupation of Iraq, there's been nothing but howling, screaming, and gnashing of teeth from the right.

And yes, I believe that, on the part of right-wingers in the U.S. and Israel, there's an element of racism to the debate. More specifically, from their perspective our dispute with Iran is largely a religious one - another potential opportunity to bomb Muslims. What are they good for, after all, except to give us their oil at the cheapest possible price? Amidst all our gassing about the sacredness of democracy, wasn't that why we overthrew Iran's democratic reformers in 1953?

And don't give me all the hyperventilating about nuclear proliferation. Am I really supposed to believe that the U.S. could negotiate with a nuclear-armed USSR for 40 years, but we're supposed to be terrified of a small country that might develop a handful of warheads?