We may never know for sure exactly what happened in Iran on June 12, 2009 - whether Ahmadinejad's victory was outright stolen or merely padded.  Even in the United States opinion on this topic is divided.

What is clear is that many people in Iran - and all three of Ahmadinejad's rival candidates - believed the announced results wildly implausible and took to the streets to protest what they regarded as a fraudulent election.

The government's reaction was initially tolerant - protests on June 15 were massive and largely peaceful. But when the protests continued, the government reacted viciously - sending out both police and ill-trained militiamen (Basiji) to tear-gas, beat, and shoot protestors, while arresting thousands of peaceful dissenters, including many of the top aides to Mir Hossein Moussavi, the leading rival candidate.

The Iranian government has declared that the election was fair and the results final. It claims the protests are inspired by a cabal of outside interests led by Britain and the United States - an absurd allegation since the chief inspiration for the unrest has come from the calls for protest sent out by Moussavi himself.

The result is both tragic and ironic. Tragic because scores are dead, thousands imprisoned, freedom and democracy are crushed.

Ironic, because few citizens of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Russia, or China would have expected their "vote" to count in the first place. They wouldn't dream of taking to the streets to protest. Iran traditionally has been different - a typical authoritarian apparatus leavened with a significant portion of freedom and democracy.

On one hand, the Guardian Council has exercised its prerogative to disqualify candidates in large numbers. Ultimate power has long resided in the un-elected Supreme Leader of Iran (always by law a cleric). Criticism of the Supreme Leader is forbidden. Newspapers have been shut down. Selected dissidents have been imprisoned, exiled, tortured and sometimes killed.

On the other hand, Iran has not been China or the Soviet Union or even Saudi Arabia. Punishments could be severe, but enforcement of social codes was generally lax. Though criticism of the Supreme Leader was dangerous, it was pretty much open season on everyone below him. Though dissent carried risk, dissenting views continued to be heard. Newspapers that had been shut down re-opened under other names.

Elections meant something in Iran. The elected President, though not Supreme, had, and has, real power in Iran, as does the Parliament. Those candidates who survived vetting by the Guardian Council represented a surprisingly broad range of opinions, and were allowed to campaign vigorously.

Indeed, the televised debate between Moussavi and Ahmadinejad on the eve of the election electrified Iran with its unbridled, hard-hitting exchanges, and probably did more than anything else to bring people to the polls on June 12. Though minor tampering was often suspected in the past, large-scale ballot rigging was thought not to occur - at least not before June 12, 2009.

The irony behind the tragedy in Iran is that the protests and demonstrations that gave us all those searing images of brutality in Iran - the figure of Neda lying in the street - derived not from a tradition of totalitarian brutality but from a history of relative leniency (compared to other authoritarian regimes) that led the Iranian people to demand more from their government, and demand it more vociferously, than citizens of most other Middle Eastern states would have dared to do.

All that has changed, and the question is whether the current crackdown will figure in history as an unhappy interlude, or whether we are witnessing a shift towards something fundamentally new. And if towards something new, is that something a new, more democratic regime, or a new totalitarianism?

Only time will tell.  Meanwhile the United States must formulate a policy towards Iran in the aftermath of the chaos there.