As the voting unfolded, the natural impulse was to view the election through the lens of American foreign policy. In turn, it seemed important to observe that Iranian politics has a logic of its own and that in Iran, as in most countries, pedestrian concerns about the quality of life dominate most elections. The most important issue in the Iranian campaign was identical to the most important issue in every country around the world for the past year -- the devastating global recession.

Indeed, the campaign itself didn't have very clear implications for U.S. policy. Ahmadinejad is in most ways a classic right-winger, a demagogic nationalist and cultural conservative. In a manner somewhat reminiscent of a Sarah Palin, however, he clothes this right-wing politics in a language of...