The chaos in Iran is far from over. Protestors are continuing to mobilize against a possibly rigged election that came out in favor of Ahmadinejad. American Conservatives are complaining that Obama isn't doing more to support the "pursuit of freedom" for which protesters are sacrificing their lives. What do they mean by this? Always insightful, Brett Stevens over at Amerika.org elaborates:

Americans, and others who have followed the path of individual desire to democracy, consumerism and the nanny state, have no idea why they are loathed.

I’d suggest it’s from the reasons we interfere. Because our society is based in the revolutions of 1789 and 1968, we [see] a dichotomy between “free” and “not-free” with no shades of gray.

Even more, it seems as if we’re trying to draw them into our system of civilization — even with its vast problems — so that they cannot have a competing style of government that might prove better. If this modernity thing is going to kill us, we want everyone else to go down, too, or someone [might get] ahead and — and that’s unfair!

We're ahead of the game, so we assume all other nations will bow down before us to satisfy out imperial interests. People who get lost in dogma forget the obvious: America is really reacting to the Irani situation not because it's playing universal citizen, but because it’s trying to maintain its empire status in an age where it's currently losing power to other empires. That Israel happens to be caught up in this war makes the whole thing even more complex and demanding: It wants to render Iran impotent without blowing itself up in the process.

But voters don't see reality, only emotions and rhetoric. Let's spell out three simple facts about the Iranian election that everyone needs to be aware of before they start bloviating:

1. We've been here before: Engaging in a US-supported revolution, disguised as "freedom" for the people, to overthrow an Evil dictator (e.g. someone who doesn't play along with our empire rules, especially if we helped him into power in the first place).

2. The CIA is doing it again: Attempting to destabilize the Iranian regime, while the whole West accuses Iran of rigged elections and totalitarian measures.

3. Mousavi is a reformist, not a revolutionary. He's not pro-West simply because his opponent is a critic of the West.

Okay, so the election is clearly not following the rule of law as in the West and the results, whatever they may be, are obviously influenced by both totalitarian bias and Western intervention. Many people are reacting to the protesters shot to death by thug police.

Very unpleasant indeed, but maybe we need to consider what Brett Stevens is trying to say: This is not our election following our democratic model. It's a country trying to maintain its independence from Western-led foreign politics--something it has been doing for the last 20 years. We can cry over dead protestors, but when we claim we support "freedom," we only prove to our Empire-leaders that we really are the moron voters they take us for.