A striking quote from Christopher Hitchens’ piece:

Iran and its citizens are considered by the Shiite theocracy to be the private property of the anointed mullahs. This totalitarian idea was originally based on a piece of religious quackery promulgated by the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and known as velayat-e faqui. Under the terms of this edict—which originally placed the clerics in charge of the lives and property of orphans, the indigent, and the insane—the entire population is now declared to be a childlike ward of the black-robed state. Thus any voting exercise is, by definition, over before it has begun, because the all-powerful Islamic Guardian Council determines well in advance who may or may not “run.”

This is the core of the theocracy – we are all God’s children, but someone has to play Jack Merridew. “Nanny state” is usual used to criticize far less authoritarian powers – the ban on trans fat, say, or politically correct priggishness. But the principle, whether it is founded in Islamic theology or utilitarianism, is the same: we know better than you do.

There is a strong case to be made for “nannying” children – this is called parenting. There is a strong, but weaker, case to be made for nannying the indigent. Yet the mission creeps, and each class becomes more and more in need of a helping hand from Papa State.

So what does one do with an impudent child? Well:

It’s easy to catch a Byronian pan-Persian fervor here, as Andrew Sullivan has (read him if you aren’t already), but this story is far from black and white. Juan Cole’s considerations aside, it’s not at all impossible that Ahmadinejad may, in fact, have won the election. As this piece puts it:

The election results in Iran may reflect the will of the Iranian people. Many experts are claiming that the margin of victory of incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was the result of fraud or manipulation, but our nationwide public opinion survey of Iranians three weeks before the vote showed Ahmadinejad leading by a more than 2 to 1 margin – greater than his actual apparent margin of victory in Friday’s election.

. . .

The breadth of Ahmadinejad’s support was apparent in our pre-election survey. During the campaign, for instance, Mousavi emphasised his identity as an Azeri, the second-largest ethnic group in Iran after Persians, to woo Azeri voters. Our survey indicated, though, that Azeris favoured Ahmadinejad by 2 to 1 over Mousavi.

Much commentary has portrayed Iranian youth and the internet as harbingers of change in this election. But our poll found that only a third of Iranians even have access to the internet, while 18-to-24-year-olds comprised the strongest voting bloc for Ahmadinejad of all age groups.

. . .

The fact may simply be that the re-election of President Ahmadinejad is what the Iranian people wanted.

Here democracy reaches its limit. Assuming that democracy is the highest virtue, then Moussavi’s movement is an anti-democratic one. Warmongers for democracy should not only refuse Moussavi any direct support, but should in fact support Ahmadinejad until his vote tally falls below 50 percent (if, in fact, it ever does). To support Moussavi is to subvert the democratic will of those who voted for Ahmadinejad.

Yet there are higher principles than “democracy,” for democracy is simply a means that has generally correlated with that principle of liberty. There are exceptions to this erst-while rule, and it is why our own constitution explicitly avoids 50+ majoritarianism,  why our constitution is, in fact, anti-democratic. Contra our own immigration authorities, the most important right is not the “right to vote,” but rather the right to not vote – a subset of the right to self-determination. When one wishes to show support for a candidate, a free society permits them to do so. Critics of Iran must remember that even if the vote counts are 100 percent accurate, that is no excuse for the actions of the Islamic State and her hired goon squads – who are, after all, watching out for the well-being of the Iranian people. The issue is not the election results, but their aftermath – a reminder of what an unfree state really is.