One has to wonder about the integrity of the Iranian election this week. In the days leading up to the vote the size of rallies in support of opposition candidate Mir Houssein Mousavi were amazing given the risks many were taking to be out front in opposition to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Many of the nations young people and the intellectuals have come to see Ahmadinejad as a liability to the nation and feel further isolation from the west.
The last 48 hours since the election results were announced has seen unprecedented protests in the streets. Mobile phones, text messaging, the Internet and social networking sights like Facebook and Twitter were suffering outages or running slow cross the region and it is likely safe to assume that the government has had a hand in trying to block to swift exchange of such information.
I have to wonder how long such protests will continue? How much dissent and how long the government will allow it to grow? Already there are indications that there have been a number of arrests and swift action in the streets to try to curb the crowds.
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