Or perhaps a better title is “what do we do about Iran?”

And the answer is pretty simple.

Nothing. We don’t interfere in their recount process. We don’t channel any kind of support (publicly or privately) to any of the candidates. We stay the fuck out of it. We don’t make any comments about what we will or won’t do regarding the nuclear situation depending on who ends up in charge. We don’t send weapons or money to the revolutionaries. We back off. Way off.

Except for the media. Don’t send soldiers or guns. Send cameras and laptops.

We (Americans) have a history of interfering in other people’s elections and/or revolutions. And we have a history of backing atrocious people (Trujillo in the DR, Pinochet in Chile, Saddam Hussein, and the Shaw of Iran whose ousting has led to Iran’s extended trip into theocracy, to name just a few). We are bad at trying to set up “democracy” in other countries. They always fail because democracy through tyranny is still tyranny.

I think it’s entirely plausible that the protests and riots are proof that the election was fixed. They are risking their lives in Iran to make their votes count. But change has to come from inside, and so does revolution. The minute we pick a candidate, that candidate looses all legitimacy in the eyes of the Iranian people. They have to be willing to fight for it themselves, and as we’ve seen in Iraq, without that kind of public groundswell you end up with a violent quagmire.