But surley its the USA duty to protect its allies. UK. As the UK helped US out in the afghan war.

Perhaps so.  Though I can't help but feel this is our fault to begin with.  Afterall the last time they had a real democracy we overthrew it.

I hope that they revolt and overthrow the dictatorship currently in Iran. This election proved that the country doesn't want democracy, and that Iranians (the people) are civilized, smart, people that want the right thing.

All day, Baby. All day.

I still don't really see the motivation for them to have rigged that election. It would have been easier for Khamenei to simply stump for Ahmadinejad and just sort of force him back into power.

What you're seeing is similar to Tiananmen square, but on a more mild scale. A brief, violent, but ultimately impotent protest that will see the country slowly go in that direction over the next couple of years.

Maybe they rigged it because Musavi won? There's no need to rig an election unless your fearful that another candidate may not win. In this case, they probably saw the actual numbers that Musavi won, and decided to report that Ahmadinejad won instead, so that he could be elected. If Musavi would have won, and Khamenei decided to choose Ahmadinejad instead, then the people would have realized their 'Democracy' was a sham (which it obviously is).

Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but Tianament was focused on one area in one town. From my understanding, this is all over the country.

I can hope for an end to the bloody fighting, and hope that they decide to have a real election with real results. Otherwise, maybe they'll take up arms and pull a fight against the guards off.

It's simple why.  The Revolutionary guard rigged the election under a more right wing cleric then Khamenei.

Khamenei likely had no problem with a reformist who would get through only pointless gestures.

They're afraid that even meaningless change will effect those really in power.

Much how liberalism infected some of the Czars of Russia.

Once the action was taken Khamenei is put it the position of either going along with the rigging... or going against the rigging and causing a giant turmoil between him and the revolutionary guard which would greatly weaken his control even if he did win.

America can't interfere obviously, Obama was at least smart enough to spot that. If America interfered a lot of the country would be forced to unite behind the hardliners in an anti-American response which would cause this entire thing to fail. America can't be seen to be meddling in Iran.

Also to the people doubting the ability of the protestors to remove the government - this is fairly similar in many ways to the 1979 revolution that overthrew the Shah and he had extensive western backing. The people in Iran do have the ability to overthrow the government if they have the motivation to do so.

Also the vote rigging isn't certain, certainly the reaction of the Iranian government looks organised in advance and the way the results came out was distinctly odd, but there is no definitive proof that rigging occured. Ahmadinejad is afterall very popular amongst the rural population.

@Troll. I'm pretty sure you have the people around the wrong way. Mousavi isn't 'in', he is the moderate in opposition to the hardliners currently in government.

Except, just like the US they announced election results by area.

Ahmadinejad won Tehran by a good margin.  Which would of been like McCain winning New York.

Yeah, Ahmad won in Mousavi's strongest region. A week before the elections Mousavi was ahead in the polls. Nobody can go from being behind to winning 2:1 in a week. Plus the insanely high turn out (85%?) suggests that the Iranian people wanted change.