LET THE HYPE BEGIN - AT 8:01 A.M. ET:  Iran votes for president tomorrow.  President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad faces competition from "reformist" candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi.  It may be close.  Be careful, though, about words like "reformist" and "moderate," which will be thrown around loosely.  Real moderates tend to be absent from the Iranian leadership.  You have to have the approval of the ruling mullahs to run at all. 

Will the result make any difference to us?  Fox News has a solid report:

But the election -- though highlighting deep political divides -- will have little effect, if any, on Iran's relations with the U.S., says Lawrence Eagleburger, former secretary of state under President George H.W. Bush.

"If the elections mean anything, it will be to force some changes within Iran but will have very little impact on our bilateral relationship," Eagleburger said.

Iran's key policies are dictated by the country's ruling Islamic leaders, who have so far rejected overtures from the U.S. and its allies to suspend uranium enrichment.

The president has control over certain domestic policies and serves as the international face of the country. But the non-elected theocracy, headed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, oversees all major decisions and directly oversees key government posts such as the foreign, intelligence and defense ministers.

Another view:

But former top Iran negotiator and U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns hardly downplayed the significance of Friday's elections. On issues of nuclear enrichment, Burns said that it "does matter who the president of Iran is, but what matters more is the position of the Supreme Leader."

"The election on Friday is going to be consequential in the sense that the candidates are clearly different in ideology and style -- and there seems to be a stronger reformist element in Iranian politics," he said.

COMMENT:  We'll see who's right.  The real danger for the U.S. is that, if the "reformer" wins, the appeasement group within the U.S. will see it as vindication.  It will not be.  A "reform" victory will not shut down one centrifuge in Iran's nuclear program.

June 11, 2009