By James Donahue

If you are going to steal an election in a nation of well educated and informed voters, the theft must be more carefully concealed and made to appear as if everything was conducted with great care so the electorate believes every vote was counted.

The fact that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the overwhelming winner in Iran’s hard-fought election that brought out 85 percent of Iran’s 46.2 million eligible voters within hours after the polls closed, and that some towns had more votes cast than registered voters on the rolls, raised immediate charges of voter fraud.

Too many votes cast in some precincts and an election count completed at an unheard of speed was an immediate trigger for the unrest that now sweeps that nation. Expects calculated that it should have taken hours if not days before the winner of that highly contested election among four candidates seeking the presidential office. Polls prior to the election indicated that the outcome would be so close that Mr. Ahmadinejad’s election to a second term might be in trouble.

There has been a joke flying about in the United States that Iranian voter officials needed the help of Florida’s former Secretary of State Katherine Harris, of hanging chad fame during the 2001 Bush-Gore election fiasco, to properly manage the cover-up.

Many Americans believe Harris, and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, George W. Bush’s brother, manipulated the critical votes in Florida that year to help Bush steal the election from Democrat Al Gore. The issue became so embroiled the U. S. Supreme Court ended up deciding the winner; something that has never happened in American history.

That the Ayatollah Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of the regime that really runs Iran, would stand up and declare hard-line president Ahmadinejad the winner by a landslide 62.6 percent of the votes, and that the Guardian Council this week found “no major fraud or breach in the election” made it clear that demands for a new election were being ignored. Yet pure street logic questions whether votes were even counted.

There was a time when most Americans failed to understand the true powers that have been ruling Iran ever since the revolution in 1979 that saw the overthrow of the monarchy under Shaw Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and put the extreme Islamic clerics under Ayatolla Huhollah Khomeini in control. The radical religious leadership has been secretly controlling Iran ever since, and the elected president appears to be no more than a figurehead.

Since the U.S. broke diplomatic ties with Iran following the hostage crisis of 1979, the capture of 52 American diplomats at the U. S. Embassy in Tehran, the goings-in in that country have been happening behind a cloak of secrecy. Our biggest concern has been accusations by the former Bush Administration that the construction of a nuclear power plant has been a subterfuge for development of nuclear weapons. This has never been proven and President Ahmadinejad has consistently denied it.

That Bush openly declared Iran part of a world axis of evil during his eight-year presidency, and refused to separate invitations by President Ahmadinejad to hold meetings when the Iranian leader was in New York to address the United Nations, helped widen the gulf between the two countries.

The disruption in the streets throughout Iran over this spring’s election has placed America’s newly elected President Barack Obama in a delicate situation. Mr. Obama has been making peace overtures and attempting to establish dialogue with Iranian leadership since taking office in January.

We have always shared Mr. Obama’s opinion that Mr. Bush was wrong in failing to open dialogue with Iran when the chance was handed to him. There is an old saying that it is difficult to hate someone that you personally know.  We strongly believe the first step to bringing about world peace is extending an open hand of friendship to everybody. Until recently, the opportunity for open talks with Iran was still possible. And if Obama plays his cards right, they may still be once the current crisis is over.