Don, crooked elections happen all over the Third World. It's a veru common thing, and it happens in countries that are allies of the USA too. I'm not sure whether or not Ahmadinejad would have won that last election if the votes had all been counted fairly. I don't have any way of knowing if he would have, and neither does anyone else among us. I'm not a bit surprised that the losing candidate contested the results and his followers took to the streets. That would have happened even IF the election had been fair and Ahmadinejad had gotten over 50% of the votes.

Consider elections in Pakistan. They always end in allegations of fraud perpetrated by the winners, huge demonstrations for and against the winners, riots, bloodshed, troops in the streets. And you know what? There always is election fraud there. ;-) Probably by both sides!

The Iranian election was undoubtedly complicated by American money that was siphoned in through CIA agents, because the USA has quite a number of operatives working in Iran all the time to destabilize and bring down the government there. So the opposition was getting illegal assistance from outside the country.

What would you think if that happened in an American election? What if the Chinese or someone were doing that on your ground? Would you like it? I don't think so.

It is mere glib political propaganda to label Ahmadinejad as a "dictator". He's a temporary elected official, and he will eventually be replaced (while still alive) by another temporary elected official, just like the men who preceded him in the same office. He is not a dictator. Dictators rule for life, and they rule by absolute power. Ahmadinejad is far from having absolute power in that country. He's just the current poster boy that the American media has siezed upon so they can have a recognizable evil "face" for the American public to fear and obsess about. He's the USA's favorite propaganda tool, and if he was gone, he'd be sorely missed by the people who yearn for a war with Iran. They'd have to spend months or years building some other evil "face" up into the next media boogeyman, after all, if Ahmadinejad was gone. That would be inconvenient. He is perfect for American and Israeli propaganda purposes.