Show of hands: Anyone surprised by this?

When you live in a country where the individuals on the ballot are pre-selected by the Supreme Leader of the land, why on earth would you be surprised to find that the victor has also been pre-selected? When dealing with Iran, it is worth remembering that their country is essentially a theocracy headed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini; while Khomeini may not control every single decision made throughout the country on a day-to-day basis, he still resides as the single authority (appointed by Allah) to which the whole country must report.

It is equally important to remember that this is not a theocracy of convenience, where religious leaders used the authority granted to them by God to pursue purely personal political gains. In the West, our most recent cultural memory of a theocracy came in just this form, via the Roman Catholic papacy and its influence over Medieval and Renaissance Europe. No; this theocracy is quite different. In the Iranian theocracy, the key players actually believe everything they say—they hold their political convictions because of their religious convictions. This stands as both a simplification and a complication: On the one hand, we have the documents and teachings of the hard-line Shiites that will show us precisely how our adversaries think; on the other, we in the West find it incredibly difficult to step outside our own cultural experience and understand precisely what the former reality means.

We misinterpret Iran at our own peril. It is now abundantly clear that Messrs. Khomeini and Ahmadinejad are both in alliance with one another and have just executed a marvelous concentration of their power. What is also clear is that there exists within the Iranian people a strong contingent that believe that their government is dead wrong. They are citizens and ex-patriots, united in their belief that the Khomeini regime is both corrupt and dangerous to the Iranian people. It is debatable how large their numbers are--a 64% victory at the polls suggests that it may be only a third of the population--but, this is a group that has showed itself willing to fight. They could be a useful ally; and though it could be easily argued that we would never find common ground, it is well worth remembering that we have had stranger allies come to our side in Iraq.