Moderate

Two comments about the Iranian election:

• Rafsanjani is a moderate only compared to president-elect Ahmadinejad, not by any Western standard. The press' insistance on characterizing this as a contest between a 'moderate' and a 'hard-liner' is testimony to its ridiculous inability to work in anything but the most basic paradigms, a problem we see often in the media's coverage of Israel. Or was it perhaps that the press thought Rafsanjani was going to win, and it suited them to portray him as 'moderate' because of their own political inclinations?
• It is extremely worrying that no-one in the West seems to have foreseen or even sensed the possibility of Ahmadinejad's victory. Not every election result is predictable, however Iran is public enemy #1 and if our finger is so spectacularly off the pulse of the country's mood, inner circles etc., we're in trouble.