With all media being restricted in Iran, the best place to get news now is Twitter using the tag #iranelection. You can find up to the minute updates from Change_for_Iran, an Iranian student, StopAhmadi, a supporter of the opposition, OxfordGirl, Iran09, Tehran Bureau and Alirezasha.
It is worth noting that this democratic revolution has vocal supporters on every side of the aisle. It seems to be an issue that everyone can join together in supporting the Iranian protesters. But the divide becomes what should our country do.
Obviously, most conservatives see this as proof that Ahmadinejad cannot be reasoned with and we should walk away from negotiations and heap international pressure on the regime, while expressing solidarity with the opposition. It is a risky move, there is no doubt, but now even liberals like those at Slate are calling on Obama to get tougher with Iran.
They warn that unless the international community, especially the US, capitalize on the situation and support the budding revolution, the ruling party will eventually crush the opposition ala Tiananmen Square and have their power more strongly solidified and become even more radical, antagonistic and anti-West.
Of course while bloggers and people from both sides are focusing on the people of Iran and the possible solutions to the situation, others are determined to use the events to slime political opponents. In his analysis of the situation liberal blogger Matthew Yglesias couldn't resist throwing in a cheap shot at the left's new obsession, Sarah Palin:
Indeed, the campaign itself didn't have very clear implications for U.S. policy. Ahmadinejad is in most ways a classic right-winger, a demagogic nationalist and cultural conservative. In a manner somewhat reminiscent of a Sarah Palin, however, he clothes this right-wing politics in a language of class resentment, painting his more pragmatic and reformist opponents as decadent elites out of touch with ordinary people. Unlike the populists of the American right, however, he merges this rhetoric with something resembling an actual populist economic agenda.
I can't tell who Yglesias thinks less of: Ahmadinejad or Palin: since she only talks a populist game, but he actually has a "populist economic agenda." Not to mention that fact that Yglesias praised Ahmadinejad in 2006 as having "a pretty sweet hipster style" and being an example for President Bush in diplomacy. (Go for that choice quote, stay for the leftists praising the Iranian dictator because the enemy of their enemy (Bush) is their friend. Nice.)
