IRAN

What has many Iranians upset about the election is the impression that the voting was not fair. This may not be so, but the behavior of the government  offended the people's sense of  independence and the right to free expression.  There has never been a perception that national elections were not since the Revolution.  There is a saying that every Iranian considers himself a Shah, that is, no one has the right to insult him or treat him like a child. 

The Iranians' issues are national and cultural. They have a pre-Islamic, Islamic and modern, secular character and culture , which divides some but they share a common sense of being one nation with over 2,500 year history .

They have some of the oldest Christian and Jewish communties. The Church of Mary may be the 2nd oldest church -  after the Nativity church in Bethlehem.  There is a plaque at the Church of Mary placed there in 642 to mark restoration done by a Chinese princess. Churches in China and India were established by the founders of Iranian churches before the 3rd century.  Professionally, many excel in mathematics, medicine and the sciences both in Iran and abroad - the largest emigre group is in the USA. Beverly Hills,California is about a quarter Iranian, as I recall, and the mayor is Iranian. Iranian universities have 65% female students. The first democratic Constitution (1904) in the East was Iranian.
Having the right to nuclear power is a national  issue.Iran by treaty was promised cooperation to develop nuclear power, Some Western nations  who are treaty members  who signed contracts to provide needed techonology have failed to deliver.
Iran has  allowed inspections, under terms of  the treaty, on their work to develop  nuclear power. 

Iran needs an alternative source of power than oil to develop and the choice of nuclear power was made years ago. As it is , Iran has to import much of its gasoline. It lacks refining capacity. This situtation is due in part because of the invasion by Iraq and the 8 year war. Much of Iran's oil infrastructure was destroyed and still needs repair.

This election has created a   power struggle within the unpopular regime . It's not about the issue of nuclear power.  Iranians see that as their right. 

 Chris Cook notes:

"If you look at recent events in Iran through the lens of oil, money and power, you won't go too far wrong...

The power base of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Mahmud Ahmadinejad's faction is the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps and the volunteer militia, the Basiji, and their economic base consists of the religious foundations known as Bonyads.

Unlike in the West, where governments are owned and run by the banking and financial system, in Iran it's the Oil Ministry that controls the purse strings and calls the shots. The Khamenei faction has gradually been taking over key positions in the ministry and its myriad state corporations.

It should be remembered that when Ahmadinejad gained power he was able to put in his own appointees as ministers, except for the key Oil Ministry, where the Majlis, or parliament, twice rejected his appointments and appointed someone acceptable to the "Oil Mafia" more or less identified with former president Hashemi Rafsanjani.

In the past couple of years, we have finally seen a new oil minister appointed by Khamenei and Ahmadinejad. In August 2007, National Iranian Oil Company boss Gholamhossein Nozari took over from Kazem Vaziri-Hamaneh. Most of the old guard - people like Kazempour Ardebili, who was for 20 years Iran's representative at the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, and several others of long standing in key positions - have "retired" or become "advisers".

Having finally wrested control after years of struggle of the oil revenues from the Rafsanjani faction, the Khamenei'ites are in no mood to give it up.

Ahmadinejad is, as far as I know, not one of the beneficiaries (being a genuinely honest and religious man), but is a useful appointee in the same way that George W Bush was a useful cipher for Big Oil, before Big Money reasserted control in the US.

My take is that the result of this election has been a very Iranian coup, and that the people in control are very much analogous to a less technocratic and unsophisticated type of siloviki - or security service types found in the corridors of power in Russia and elsewhere.

Personally, I doubt whether this faction will be able to maintain and consolidate control because its members do not have the expertise to manage an unwilling bureaucracy. They also seem to have alienated the powerful bazaaris, whose support was instrumental both for the late ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979, and for Ahmadinejad more recently.

I don't see any chance of a violent revolutionary struggle, since the Iranian military is keeping out of it. This is an economic, not an ideological struggle.

The next phase in Iran will be fought on the economic battleground provided President Barack Obama is shrewd enough to stay out of it, and not to allow the nuke-nationalist card to be played. Indeed, the friendlier and more helpful the US is, the more difficult will be the new government's position."

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KF17Ak01.html

Former CIA analyst Robert Baer at TNR's Plank on the election:

What makes this such a tenuous situation is that [Supreme Leader]Khamenei's legitimacy has been in question from the day he succeeded Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989. It was widely understood among intelligence analysts that Khamenei did not have the religious credentials to succeed Khomeini as supreme leader, Iran's head of state who is supposed to be the most learned religious cleric. In fact, Khamenei is not even really an ayatollah--his license was in effect bought--and he has no popular religious following as other legitimate ayatollahs do. It doesn't help that Iranian leaders of Khomeini's generation have never particularly liked Khamenei and see him as a man who muscled his way into power, perhaps even by killing Khomeini's son, the person most likely to challenge his rule.
A sure signal of Khamenei's political weakness occurred when Ahmadinejad attacked former president Rafsanjani for corruption during the election campaign. Rafsanjani is and always has been a threat to Khamenei's legitimacy. Not only is he more of a real ayatollah, but he is also Chairman of the Assembly of Experts and the Expediency Council, two powerful government bodies. The Assembly of Experts has the power to remove Khamenei and appoint a new Supreme Leader. And though facts are impossible to come by, it is almost certain that Ahmadinejad's attack on Rafsanjani could not have been made without a green light from Khamenei, who knew that charges of Rafsanjani's corruption would strike a chord with Iranians. Khamenei saw and probably still sees Rafsanjani as a threat to his power, even to his position as supreme leader, and this was an effective way to pounce.
Still, if the protests and demonstrations in Tehran cannot be controlled, we should seriously start to wonder about Khamenei's future. Rafsanjani is rumored to be in the holy city of Qum plotting against Khamenei, seeing if he has enough votes in the 86-member Assembly of Experts to remove Khamenei.

http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_plank/default.aspx

 There is a biographical article on Moussavi  on page 1 of June 18th NYTIMES:

..After stepping down [as Prime Minister] in 1989, Mr. Moussavi kept a hand in politics, serving on Iran's Expediency Council. But most of his time was devoted to architecture and painting. His chief influences include the Italian architect Renzo Piano, said a close relative.

"He takes some elements of modern Japanese architecture, and American postmodern, and then puts them in the context of Iranian architecture," the relative said.

Although he is deeply religious, Mr. Moussavi (the name is also often rendered in English as Mir Hossein Mousavi) appears to hold relatively liberal social views. His wife is a well-known professor of political science who has campaigned alongside him, often giving speeches and news conferences independently. When they were younger, he was sometimes introduced as "the husband of Zahra Rahnavard." His wife promised that if he was elected, he would advance women's rights and appoint "at least two or three women" to the cabinet.

His oldest daughter is a nuclear physicist. The youngest prefers not to wear the Islamic chador, and her parents do not mind, the relative said. "There has never been any compulsion in the family," the relative added.

June 19th  Friday sermon by the Supreme Leader.

 The people aren't buying last century's slogans. The role of the Supreme Leader is to be above mere politics and Khamenei's behavior since calling the election after two hours (not his right, the Guardian Council should certify after a week) has destroyed acceptance of the right of the regime to rule in the eyes of the people. This can't be reversed, although repression may now grow. That was the harsh message  today.

The NYTimes blog The Lede has been posting photos and comments from Iran on a continuous basis, from Iranians and others there and abroad. The government
failed to block Twitter .

There  have been divisions among the leading clerics regarding the Constitution's division  of powers for many years:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Ayatollah_Hossein-Ali_Montazeri 

Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri (Persian: حسین علی منتظری), styled His Honourable Eminence, (born in 1922), was one of the leaders of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. He is best known as the one-time designated successor to the revolution's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini who fell out with Khomeini in 1989 over government policies that Montazeri claimed infringed on freedom and denied people's rights. He currently lives in the holy city of Qom, and remains politically influential in Iran, especially upon reformist politics. [1] Montazeri is a senior Islamic scholar and a grand marja (religious authority) of Islam.

For almost three decades, Hossein Ali Montazeri has been one of the main critics of Islamic Republic's domestic and foreign policy. He has also been an active advocate of civil rights and women's rights in Iran. He is a prolific writer and has authored a number of books and articles.

He has been speaking out regarding the election.