Better the devil you know than the devil you don't

Many in the West will be dissapointed if not downright terrified by the recent election results in Iran. But as Michael Gove recently pointed out, this was no free and fair election. Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader hand picked the candidates, which meant there wasn't much in the way of a competition: basically an Islamic extremist versus an even bigger Islamic extremist.

Unfortunately, the same Western media that pilloried the 2000 US election has treated Iran like some kind of liberal democracy. So whilst Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is seen as an ultra-conservative, his opponent Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani is portrayed as a moderate.

Rafsanjani is no moderate, not by any stretch of the imagination. Had he won, the West would have deluded itself into believing Iran is a free and open regime that we can do business with. With Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the winner, you at least know who you're dealing with....a thugocracy that supports terrorism abroad, imprisons its cititzens at home, and seeks regional domination.

It's a pity the Western media take democracy for granted on their home soil, whilst simultaneously praising regimes that are anything but. The Iranian election should serve to remind us how thin on the ground democracy is, were are lucky to have it!