Iran: "I don't think anyone anticipated this level of fraudulence"

Obviously, this is not good:

"I don't think anyone anticipated this level of fraudulence," Reuters cited the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace's Karim Sadjadpour. "This was a selection, not an election. At least authoritarian regimes like Syria and Egypt have no democratic pretences. In retrospect it appears this entire campaign was a show: (Supreme Leader) Ayatollah (Ali) Khamenei wasn't ever going to let Ahmadinejad lose."

"I'm in disbelief that this could be the case," Reuters cited Trita Parsi. "It's one thing if Ahmadinejad had won the first round with 51 or 55 per cent. But this number ... just sounds tremendously strange in a way that doesn't add up ... It is difficult to feel comfortable that this occurred without any cheating."

The scale of the suspected fraud was such that fears of a possible police crackdown on opposition leaders and their supporters have been heightened.

"If [Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei comes and endorses the results prior, ... then a Mousavi protest will be more than a confrontation, but war," a Washington Iran hand says.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration is reported to be "skeptical of Iran's election results."

U.S. officials are casting doubt over the results of Iran's election, in which the government declared President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the winner Saturday.

U.S. analysts find it "not credible" that challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi would have lost the balloting in his hometown or that a third candidate, Mehdi Karoubi, would have received less than 1 percent of the total vote, a senior U.S. officials told FOX News.

P.S. Check out Mir Hossein Mousavi's Facebook page here. Any good Farsi translation programs out there?

UPDATE: Al Arabiya reports that "in a protest against election results Iran’s Hashemi Rafsanjani resigned from his posts as the chairman of the Assembly of Experts and as head of the Expediency Discernment Council, the two most influential institutions in the country." In addition, there are rumors that Mousavi is under house arrest. According to Stratfor, if Rafsanjani really has broken with the regime and side with Mousavi, "the potential for these demonstrations and claims of voter fraud to gain legitimacy will rise substantially."

UPDATE #2: For some excellent analysis of what happened with the Iranian election results, click here. Also, see niacINsight for live blogging of the situation. The bottom line is that this election was almost certainly stolen on a massive scale; the question is, what will happen next?