Iranian Poll-arization

It seems the Obama administration is strongly hinting that it doesn't believe the legitimacy of Mahmoud Ahmedinejad's landslide election yesterday.

U.S. analysts find it "not credible" that challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi would have lost the balloting in his hometown or that a third candidate, Mehdi Karoubi, would have received less than 1 percent of the total vote, a senior U.S. officials told FOX News.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khameini apparently has released a statement calling the results "final" and hailing the election as a legitimization of the regime and its elections.

Turnout appears to have reached 82 percent, an all-time high. But when asked if the turnout figures should be considered suspect, given the "not credible" counts for Mousavi and Karoubi, the official said the turnout clearly was questionable.

There already are reports of violence outside Mousavi's campaign headquarters and of huge demonstrations for both sides in central Tehran, with Mousavi trying to make his way to the one organized by his supporters. Even if widespread violence occurs, analysts see no prospect that this event would lead to a full-scale attempt at revolution or the toppling of the regime.

The dominant view among Obama administration officials is that the regime will look so bad as a result of whipping up Iranian hopes for democracy and then squelching them that the regime may feel compelled to show some conciliatory response to Obama's gestures of engagement.

Which is one side of the table: smart diplomacy and democracy wins in the end, or at least acts as a catalyst for true change. The BBC is reporting riots with thousands of opposition supporters taking on plice in violent street protests.

The other view of Ahmedinejad's victory is a bit more bellicose, especially in Israel.

Vice Premier Silvan Shalom and Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon on Saturday stressed the danger posed by the Iranian nuclear threat, following the initial reports that the Islamic republic had reelected Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to serve as their president, a result that became official later Saturday afternoon.

"The Iranian election results are a slap in the face of those who believed Iran was built for real dialogue with the free world and would halt its nuclear program," Shalom said.

"Ahmadinejad's victory sends a clear message to the world that there is wide support for the current policy, and it will continue unchanged. The United States and the free world must reevaluate the policy on Teheran's nuclear ambitions," he was quoted by Israel Radio as saying.

So which view is the truth? Is Iran ready to come to the table in order to pacify its increasingly angry populace, or is this proof that Iran is going for broke on developing nuclear weapon technology?

In other words, will Obama and Hillary Clinton be able to get some sort of real diplomatic concessions from Iran before Israel decides is has no other choice but to attack?

I'm not sure, frankly. It's entirely possible both could happen this year.