"For Iran's leaders, the only state of affairs worse than poor relations with the United States may be improved relations. The Shiite Muslim clerics who rule the country came to power after ousting Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, a U.S.-backed autocrat, in their 1979 Islamic revolution. Opposition to the United States, long vilified as the "great Satan" here in Friday sermons, remains one of the main pillars of Iranian politics." - Dave Winer from Bookmarklet

Visualize this: an Obama web campaign aimed at the people of Iran. They will block it, of course, at the border, but there are a lot of Iranians living overseas and lots of ways into Iran through the net (including FriendFeed, btw). I'd be amazed if Scoble doesn't have somethng to say about this. :-) - Dave Winer

Plus a lot of Iranians have access to satellite TV and thus presumably satellite internet neither of which can be controlled by the state. - Alex Scoble

Right on. That's the powerful thing about Obama that a lot of people here haven't figured out yet, is that what he did in the US was watched all over the world, and the same techniques apply. My guess is that the leaders of Iran are just beginning to figure it out. :-) - Dave Winer

I've always proposed that dropping more satellite TV units into the Middle East would be the most productive thing we could do to win hearts and minds. - Michael Hart