Iran Protests: CNN's Iran 101

This article does a good job explaining some of the background to the current protests in Iran, and some of their recent history.

Very interesting is the comment regarding the similarity of the candidate Mir Hossein Moussavi to the current president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Both are considered "hard liners". Of Moussavi, CCN says,

Though the 67-year-old former prime minister is credited for successfully navigating the Iranian economy as prime minister during the Iran-Iraq war, he also was a hard-liner whom the Economist described as a "firm radical."

He, like most Iranians in power, does not believe in the existence of Israel. He defended the taking of the American hostages in 1979. He was part of a regime that regularly executed dissidents. And as late as April, he opposed suspending the country's nuclear-enrichment program but said it would not be diverted to weapons use.