In reply to “Iran’s Election: None of America’s Business,” by Justin Raimondo, 06/15/09:

In all the hoopla over the elections in Iran, there are two items that are prominently omitted by journalists:

1. How much has been spent by the N.E.D. and other U.S.-funded operations to defeat Ahmadinejad?

2. Is the alleged “unfairness” of the electoral result similar to the “unfairness” of the U.S. presidential elections of 2000 and 2004?

Robert Thatch

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It seems that Americans, including Mr. Raimondo, still can’t get it. When will we realize that we are despised throughout the world by the working classes and the poor who see us as allies of any oligarchy in their respective countries that’s ready to exploit them to the bones! Mr. Ahmadinejad did not need fraud to win an election. Simply a vote for him is perceived by a substantial majority of Iranians as slap in America’s face. Mousavi’s supporters are the designer clad set of Iran who hold the world’s record(percentage wise) in plastic surgery.

The same thing has happened in Venezuela, Chile, Argentina,Bolivia, Panama, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Ecuador, Uruguay, and Haiti right here in our own backyard. No fraud was necessary. Were they all fraudulent? NO! Even an Aristide in Haiti did not need fraud to win over 65% of the popular vote in Haiti. Not because he did squat for the people, but simply because a vote for him was perceived as a vote against the elite and the US. It is time you all learn this fundamental equation of popular elections in the third world.

Stanley Laham

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Justin Raimondo writes “… the U.S. government’s role in overthrowing Mohammed Mossadegh’s democratically elected government in 1953 …”

It is surprising how enduring this misconception is. Mohammed Mossadegh’s government was NOT democratically elected by the time it was overthrown. It had been, originally, as part of a coalition — but Mossadegh lost parliamentary support and was dismissed, according to democratic parliamentary practice. Unlike an earlier dismissal, which he accepted and after which he rebuilt his position, he unconstitutionally refused to go and started ruling dictatorially, setting in motion rigged plebiscites and so on that were not endorsed by the constitution to manufacture legitimacy. It was while he was doing this that he was overthrown.

It is at least arguable that the overthrow itself was justified, as constitutional means of redress had been thwarted — but, unlike England in 1688, the coup was not followed by a restoration of democracy. What happened in 1953 was a case where there were no good guys.

P.M.Lawrence

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You wrote:

In any case, the Mousavi challenge was a frontal assault on the legitimacy of the current regime, and they have responded just as tyrannical elites have always responded, with deadly force and brazen fraud.

You do NOT know this.

I am begining to see you as differing from Christopher Hitchens ONLY in that you’re a passivist and he wants to kill all non-secular people.

I see you’re getting into Obamaism also. Praising his EXTRAORDINARY speech to Iran. Rubbish. His “no pre-conditions” means we can talk and we can tell [the Iranian regime] face to face you cease nuclear enrichment or else.

You are now slowly drifting more and more to joining what I call the NeoCon/NeoLib marriage in Hell. Thank goodness for great men like Chris Hedges and Paul Craig Roberts.

W. Maxfield Greenwood