Back to Gideon RachmanI am writing my newspaper column for tomorrow about Iran, but here are some preliminary thoughts on the central question - was this a fix? Even in the West, there are plenty of people who are ready to buy the line that Ahmadinejad may actually have won - with Iran’s votes splitting along class-lines, and the poor and the devout out-polling the urban middle-classes.
But I think the reporting in today’s FT and elsewhere illustrates why that line of argument is implausible. Roula Khalaf points out that the sheer margin of victory is inconsistent with what we know about Iranian voting patterns and so “defies belief”. Najmeh Bozorgmehr makes the vital point that officially Moussavi lost even in his home town and even in Azeri-speaking areas, despite his Azeri background. Juan Cole, an American academic who has been a scathing critic of neo-con policy to the Middle East, nonetheless does not buy the Iranian election results. He argues that cultural divisions within the Iranian electorate are at least as important as the economic ones - with the young and women favouring reformist candidates.
And then there is the fact that the government in Iran is hardly behaving like a group that has just won a clean election - beating up demonstrators, detaining opposition leaders and shutting down mobile-phone networks. This has all the hallmarks of a stolen election.
This blog covers a variety of topics from US foreign policy to European politics and the Middle East - and whatever else happens to be in the news or catch my attention. I joined the FT as chief foreign affairs commentator in 2006, after a 15-year career at The Economist which included stints as a correspondent in Brussels, Bangkok and Washington. I write a weekly column on foreign affairs, which appears in the paper on Tuesdays. Occasionally my FT colleagues contribute posts to this blog.
Geoff Dyer is the FT's China bureau chief. He has been a correspondent in Shanghai and in Brazil and has also covered the pharmaceuticals and biotechnology industries from London.
Roula Khalaf is the FT's Middle East editor. She has worked for the FT since 1995, first as North Africa correspondent, then Middle East correspondent and most recently as Middle East editor. Before joining the FT, she was a staff writer for Forbes magazine in New York. 
James Blitz is the FT's defence and diplomatic editor. He has been the FT's political editor, based in London, and Rome bureau chief. James is a former Moscow bureau chief for the Sunday Times.
Alan Beattie is the FT's world trade editor. He has previously been economics leader writer and spent two years in Washington DC as chief US economics correspondent. Before joining the FT, Alan was an economist at the Bank of England. 
Victor Mallet is the FT's Madrid correspondent. He is a former Asia editor of the FT, and, in more than 20 years at the organisation, has also worked in Africa, Europe and the Middle East. In 1990 he escaped from Kuwait after being one of the few foreign correspondents there when Iraq invaded. 
Stefan Wagstyl is the FT's eastern Europe editor, co-ordinating coverage of the region. He has also been the FT's bureau chief in Tokyo and New Delhi.
