The last week has been a busy one for me. On  Thursday of last week, I flew back to Detroit from Istanbul, and ever since then I've been involved with an incredible amount of work involving the packing and unpacking books, clothes, and other things. I've got a workshop coming up this week at the University of Illinois (on Russia's role in human mobility), but my hope is that once I return to Ann Arbor next week I'll be in a position to settle down and get some writing done!

Meanwhile, like so many other people I've been transfixed by the events taking place this week in Iran. It seems hardly surprising to me that, once American policy towards Iran stepped away from one of near-constant threat-making, that people in Iran would follow suit by—at the very least—turning out in incredible numbers in favor of a candidate who seems to provide Iran with a better chance of developing a less confrontational relationship with the United States and Europe.


Photo courtesy AP

Indeed, Iran has a tradition of mass protest and revolution that goes back long before the 1979 Revolution that brought in the Islamic Republic. Whether it's the Tobacco Protest, the constitutional revolution of 1905, or the 1979 revolution against the Shah, mass protest and revolution factor heavily into some of the most celebrated moments in modern Iranian history. Even during the rule of Mohammad Khatami (1997-2005), a president who was considered a moderate, students in Iran protested frequently against the inability of the president to carry out his reformist agenda.

What's not surprising is that, in the wake of George W. Bush's "Axis of Evil" speech in 2002, Iranians would vote in Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who had denounced the policies of the United States and the United Nations against Iran during the 2005 presidential election. Certainly, there were many factors contributing to Ahmadinejad's victory (including a partial boycott of the elections by erstwhile supporters of Khatami, who was prevented from running against by term limits), but it does seem likely that Bush's bellicose rhetoric towards Iran from 2002 onwards played at least some role in bringing Ahmadinejad to power.

Without question, there are many considerations that people in Iran make when casting their ballots—relations with the United States and the rest of the world make up just one of a wide array of concerns many people have. However, it doesn't strike me as coincidental that, on the heels of an initiative by Barack Obama to recalibrate the relationship between the United States and Muslim societies elsewhere in the world, the electoral potency of a politician who has largely built his reputation on the basis of confrontation with the United States would—if it is true that the polling last Friday was rigged—perhaps be starting to wane.

More ominously for the political leadership in Iran right now, moreover, Iranians are in the streets yet again.