Was there really fraud in Iranian election?

An anonymous Iranian analyzes the tumult in his own country on the NYT opinion page. He is concerned that American journalists are developing a counternarrative to the one he sees before his eyes. What is the counter-narrative? "That perhaps this election wasn’t a fraud after all. That the United States shouldn’t rush in with complaints of democracy denied, and that perhaps Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the president the Iranian people truly want (and, by extension, deserve)." He is forceful: "Do not believe it!"

He also reminds us that Moussavi was a favored son of Ayatollah Khomeini and a member of Iran's original cohort of revolutionaries, and he remains a firm believer in teh revolution and the framework of the Islamic Revolution.

This is what I've been stressing and why I haven't criticised the president for not doing or saying more. It's enough for the President to say that the United States is a friend of the Iranian people, and that we would like our ideals of peaceful protest, the rule of law and popular elections to prevail.

Alisa Harris over at World magazine offers an apologetic for some of the West's reporting on Ahmadinejad's victory.

I come back to the teachings of Vatican II on religious liberty. What are the prospects for religious freedom in Iran? At this point, there is no indication that Christians will be free to preach the gospel no matter who comes out on top.