This is a good analysis of the Iranian people. George Friedman
reminds us the those with iPods, Twitter and easy access to the
phone are not necessarily the majority in Iran.

Americans and Europeans have been misreading Iran
for 30 years. Even after the shah fell, the myth
has survived that a mass movement of people
exists demanding liberalization - a movement that
if encouraged by the West eventually would form a
majority and rule the country. We call this
outlook "iPod liberalism," the idea that anyone
who listens to rock 'n' roll on an iPod, writes
blogs and knows what it means to Twitter must be
an enthusiastic supporter of Western liberalism.
Even more significantly, this outlook fails to
recognize that iPod owners represent a small
minority in Iran- a country that is poor,
pious and content on the whole with the
revolution forged 30 years ago.

He goes on to say about Ahmadinejad's popularity.

First, Ahmadinejad speaks of piety. Among vast
swathes of Iranian society, the willingness to
speak unaffectedly about religion is crucial.
Though it may be difficult for Americans and
Europeans to believe, there are people in the
world to whom economic progress is not of the
essence; people who want to maintain their
communities as they are and live the way their
grandparents lived. These are people who see
modernization - whether from the shah or Mousavi
- as unattractive. They forgive Ahmadinejad his
economic failures.

Second, Ahmadinejad speaks of corruption. There
is a sense in the countryside that the ayatollahs
- who enjoy enormous wealth and power, and often
have lifestyles that reflect this - have
corrupted the Islamic Revolution. Ahmadinejad is
disliked by many of the religious elite precisely
because he has systematically raised the
corruption issue, which resonates in the
countryside.

Third, Ahmadinejad is a spokesman for Iranian
national security, a tremendously popular stance.
It must always be remembered that Iran fought a
war with Iraq in the 1980s that lasted eight
years, cost untold lives and suffering, and
effectively ended in its defeat. Iranians,
particularly the poor, experienced this war on an
intimate level. They fought in the war, and lost
husbands and sons in it. As in other countries,
memories of a lost war don't necessarily
delegitimize the regime. Rather, they can
generate hopes for a resurgent Iran, thus
validating the sacrifices made in that war -
something Ahmadinejad taps into. By arguing that
Iran should not back down but become a major
power, he speaks to the veterans and their
families, who want something positive to emerge
from all their sacrifices in the war.

Kind of sounds like the republicans and those who still
like 'Bush. But in Iran there are many more of them than
the "professionals", students and liberal thinkers.

C