About six or seven months ago a friend asked me about the outcome of the tenth presidential elections. I told him that what ever was the worse case scenario would happen!

Unfortunately, like many of my fellow Iranians, I too have gradually distanced myself from this realism and have become optimistic. And as my degree of optimism has increased, so has my realism. I understand that there is no other way to be than to be optimistic. Because of my non-participation in the 2005 presidential elections, I had been pressured so much during the last four years that it was not possible to repeat the same position.

The second point is the difference that exists in the logical behavior of decision makers with that of the books on philosophy that we have read.

In fact, any time I want to analyze the behavior of any government in the world, I put myself in their shoes and then in view of their interests, limitations and possibilities, try to predict their behavior.

Unfortunately I used the same logic about the Iranian system when I was looking at each of the two last elections. But I was misled!

By adding two and two, and by looking at the limitations and possibilities that existed for the Islamic Republic, I concluded that the Iranian regime would not gain anything except harm and loss by continuing to keep Mr. Ahmadinejad at the helm of the country’s affairs. And because of this, I thought the regime had gone beyond him and wanted to end this phase in a natural way so that Ahmadinejad’s hardline supporters would not resort to disruptive measures, and through this replace him with a person who would create new opportunities for the system as well.

There is no doubt that the continuation of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s management would bring nothing other than continued international pressure, intensification of conflicts within the domestic power structure and distrust of a large part of Iranian society regarding the regime, all of which are really threats to the Iranian political system. Based on this logic, I thought it was necessary for the political leadership to go beyond Ahmadinejad.

Conversely, by taking the presidential office, Mr. Mousavi could create new international opportunities for Iran, reduce the conflicts and differences within the power structure, and win over a large part of the disheartened people, increasing trust in the regime. Overall, this would also create new possibilities for the continuation of the life of the regime.

According to this believe, Mousavi would be a natural choice for the state and so the regime would really be happy for his presence in the election and even strongly welcome it.

But the logic of the Iranian state is completely contrary to the logic of ordinary humans.

So the worst-case scenario, as compared to our reason and logic, has taken place. This is most certainly detrimental for the regime, but from a personal perspective, it is really not that bad for Mousavi and Karubi. Had they come to office, they would have soon been engulfed in the problems that have been created because of Mr. Ahmadinejad administration’s nuclear policies.

Perhaps God has helped them not to be caught in a quagmire that they did not create.

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*Ahmad Zeidabadi was arrested just a few hours after he submitted this article to Rooz.