While this may surprise most, I actually think that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won re-election in the presidential race, and that it was not necessary for him to resort to fraud to achieve this end. Having said this, I think that the wise approach to defusing the tensions witnessed in the streets, and to bring an end to the potential for deadly violence, while at the same time firmly establishing the legitimacy of the newly elected president would be for Mr. Khamenei to order that the elections be held over again with the media and neutral monitors observing all aspects of the elections, including the vote count. Once, as I suspect, Mr. Ahmadinejad is re-elected in a fully transparent election, the leadership in Iran will face the challenge of finding a solution to the on-going power struggle between Mr. Khamenei and Hashemi-Rafsanjani, and it is my strong feeling that Mr. Khamenei will prevail, with Hashemi-Rafsanjani being relegated to insignificance.
