Iranian election uproar tests US

"The world just got a lot more complicated for Obama," said Michael Rubin, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, who tracks and translates Persian-language news reports.

Obama has said he will try to engage Iran, regardless of the election results. Now Obama will be making his outreach to a regime that a wide swath of Iranians believe stole the election. In recent weeks, hopes were raised in Iran and abroad that Ahmadinejad's rival, Mir Hossein Mousavi, a former prime minister who campaigned for better relations with the world, had gained widespread popular support and a mandate for change.

"It will be more difficult for Obama to get support from the people of America," said Meir Javedanfar, a Middle East analyst who has written a biography of Ahmadinejad. "He will still do it, but when there are problems and doubt, people will say, 'look at the elections.' "

Yesterday, the Obama administration responded cautiously to the news. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told reporters in Canada, "We obviously hope that the outcome reflects the genuine will and desire of the Iranian people."

Administration officials were otherwise silent out of concern that any comments might influence the results, but they were privately hoping for a victory by Mousavi.

The election results stunned and dismayed many in Tehran, who had expected Mousavi to make a far stronger showing, due to a vigorous coalition of young people, women, and intellectuals, who camped out in the streets of Tehran wearing the signature green of his campaign, forming a human chain down 10 miles of a major boulevard last week in a show of their power. But Ahmadinejad, a populist who has increased subsidies to the poor, has cultivated strong support among rural Iranians, and made more trips to the provinces than any previous president.

Both sides claimed victory after the polls closed on Friday night. But Iran's state-owned news agency announced that Ahmadinejad had won by a vast margin just two hours after the polls closed following a record turnout of nearly 30 million voters, prompting suspicions of fraud.

Yesterday morning, election officials reported that president Ahmadinejad had received nearly 19 million votes, or about 63 percent of the total, while Mousavi got about 9 million votes, or 34 percent. Two other challengers, Mohsen Rezaie, a conservative former commander of the Revolutionary Guard, got just under 600,000 votes, while Mehdi Karroubi, a liberal former speaker of the Parliament, garnered about 260,000, or 2.5 and 0.88 percent respectively. Turnout was a record 85 percent, officials said.

Mousavi immediately rejected the results, saying in a statement on his campaign website that "the people's will has been faced with an amazing incident of lies, hypocrisy, and fraud."

"I'm warning that I won't surrender to this manipulation," he wrote, adding that the election results were "shaking the pillars of the Islamic Republic of Iran's sacred system."

Ahmadinejad called on the public to respect the vote and attacked foreign media coverage.

"All political and propaganda machines abroad and sections inside the country have been mobilized against the nation," he said in a televised address. "They have launched the heaviest propaganda and psychological war against the Iranian nation."

Without mentioning the unrest on the streets, Ahmadinejad proclaimed that "a new era has begun in the history of the Iranian nation."

After the results were announced, clashes broke out across central Tehran, as protesters set fire to tires outside the Interior Ministry and police fought back. Officers beat protesters with truncheons and kicked them. Some of the demonstrators grouped together to charge back at police, hurling stones.

Plumes of dark smoke streaked over the city, as burning barricades of tires and garbage bins glowed orange in the streets. Protesters also torched an empty bus, engulfing it in flames.

In another main street of Tehran, some 300 young people blocked the avenue by forming a human chain and chanted "Ahmadi, shame on you. Leave the government alone." There was no word on any casualties or arrests.

Interior Minister Sadeq Mahsouli, who supervised the elections and heads the nation's police, warned people not to join any "unauthorized gatherings." Text-messaging, used by many to trade election news, was shut down and several-pro-Mousavi websites were blocked.

"Many Iranians went to the people because they wanted to bring change," said Mousavi supporter Nasser Amiri, a hospital clerk in Tehran. "Almost everybody I know voted for Mousavi, but Ahmadinejad is being declared the winner. The government announcement is nothing but widespread fraud. It is very, very disappointing. I'll never, ever again vote in Iran."

But Ahmadinejad supporters cruised the streets waving Iranian flags out of car windows and shouting, "Mousavi is dead!"

It was not clear yesterday whether the riots were the last act of a bitter election campaign, or the beginning of a new era of political unrest.

The powerful Revolutionary Guard cautioned Wednesday that it would crush any "revolution" against the Islamic regime by Mousavi's "green movement."

Ending all speculation about the outcome, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei - the powerful cleric whose authority is greater than the president's - issued a statement yesterday calling the election a "divine blessing" and urging support for Ahmadinejad.

"This election signals the Supreme Leader's endorsement of Ahmadinejad's style," Rubin said. "A lot of people were arguing that the Supreme Leader didn't even support Ahmadinejad, but that was wishful thinking."

Although the United States and its allies, particularly Israel, are deeply critical of Ahmadinejad's confrontational style and his insistence that Iran continue enriching uranium, which US and Israeli officials believe is aimed at creating a nuclear weapon capability, many Iranians see him as a leader who has expanded Iran's power and whose unyielding stance prompted the United States to become more conciliatory.

It remains unclear now how Ahmadinejad will respond to Obama's invitation to nuclear talks, and to the legions of disappointed Mousavi supporters who campaigned for greater freedoms.

"A government elected with somewhat dubious circumstances and disputes may need to mollify public opinion at home" and be more flexible, said Walter Russell Mead, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. "On the other hand, they may read this as, 'we've got a mandate. Let's go ahead.' In that case, it is going to be hard for Obama."

Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.