Vast majority of Iranians believe the elections were fair

http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/brmiddleeastnafricara/639.php?nid=&id=&pnt=639&lb=

Really, there just has never been a reasonable argument that the elections were fraudulent. If there had been the entire episode would have gone much differently - including possibly the removal of Khamenei by the Assembly of Experts.

I've talked about the lack of evidence of fraud before, and these results are completely expected in that light.

What is important now, is that the US community of Iran scholars seems nearly unanimous in its insistence that Iran's elections are fraudulent. It is funny at this point reading articles by Juan Cole, Roger Cohen or others that cannot discuss the election without the prefix "fraudulent".

You really get the feeling that they believe if they insist hard enough, their insistence itself can take the place of evidence.

The problem isn't that they are all convincing each other of how fraudulent the election must have been, since of course most Iranians share their contempt for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The problem is that this widespread and false impression the permeates their community can result in poorly informed US policy.

This poll might have helped bring the US community of Iran scholars back into reality, but unfortunately we see these scholars grasping at ways to maintain their beliefs despite any contrary evidence.

Juan Cole in his Salon article claims Ahmadinejad has around 60% support. I guess that is the most unfavorable reading possible of the poll. 80% of Iranians consider him the legitimate ruler of Iran. But 60% support is enough that Cole's early claims that the results themselves were proof of fraud are now conclusively false. If Ahmadinejad has 60% support then the presumptive conclusion in light of a 63% victory in an election would have to be that the election was honest. At least until proof otherwise becomes available.

Funnily, Cole actually tried to support his claim that the election was fraudulent recently by claiming that the votes were counted in 10 hours. 10 hours is not a fast amount of time for local polling locations to count fewer than 2000 votes each. Cole's assertion that it was a sign of fraud relies on the early rumors that people wearing black and riding bikes stole the ballots from the polling locations. Those rumors were not repeated in Mousavi's or any of the other candidate's contentions of election irregularity. The only plausible explanation is that the rumors were false. These rumors were spread so quickly, and were so well designed that they do point to outside pre-planning.

Gary Sick also provides humor in discussing a result that if the election was held today, 49% of voters would choose Ahmadinejad. He claims that this 49% number is what he expected and would have forced a run-off. Basic arithmetic would show that if 49% of people polled would choose Ahmadinejad, and a substantial number of people do not vote, then that 49% in this case translates to over 60% of actual voters and both reaffirms the results and argues against fraud just as all of the poll's other findings.

The problem is that this society of Ahmadinejad-haters - in convincing themselves that regardless of the vote count and more recently the polls, most Iranians must feel the disgust for Ahmadinejad that they do - are able to misguide US policy.

Iran is fairly well unified behind Ahmadinejad and the reformers, who never had been either pro-US or willing to make the changes the US would want in Iranian policy, are now as weak as they have ever been. They are nearly impotent as a factor in Iranian politics and I hope they are able to avoid hanging or prison.

The US Iran policy community seems to be awaiting the imminent and triumphant return of the reformist after which they will lead Iran in a popular capitulation to US Middle East desires. Just a crazy idea. I've read that any leader who gets better relations with the US will be a national hero. Crazy. The Shah is the opposite of a national hero.

I hope we are not headed towards disaster when the fantasies of the US' Iran policy community - which are fueled by a heavily distorted view of Ahmadinejad that is held by Israelis but not Iranians - meet reality.

If Obama's advisers are not able to accept that their views on Ahmadinejad - and therefore their views on the country that gives Ahmadinejad 80% legitimacy - are not universal truths but results from biases in their own analyises, it is very predictable that Obama's policies will end up harming the US.