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AS AFGHANISTAN this week began to come to terms with the dubious re-election of Hamid Karzai – largely so far, peacefully – in neighbouring Iran, opposition groups made clear that the matter of their own fraudulent re-election in June of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is far from settled.

Using the opportunity presented by official anti-US commemorations of the 1979 seizure of hostages in the US embassy, tens of thousands of demonstrators on Wednesday took to the streets of Tehran and other cities in the biggest show of strength in two months. Police and the conservative Basij militias responded with tear gas, beatings and arrests. Reformist cleric Mehdi Karroubi had a tear gas canister fired at him, injuring a bodyguard, while defeated presidential candidate Mir-Hussein...