I think it won't help matters one bit for the rest of the world to persecute Iran over this, it will only encourage its government to play the "patriotic defence of Iran against foreign attack" card, and crack down harder on those Iranians who dared protest the election results.

Iran's government would be as little swayed by our criticism of their electoral practices as we would be by their criticism of our political practices. Not at all, in other words.

They don't give a damn what we think about their system. We don't give a damn what they think about our system either, so why expect it to be any different when it's going in the opposite direction?

It is the Iranians themselves who must initiate change in Iran, and in time they will. They have before. They will again.