Word: ahmadinejad
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...much of the outside world, the dominant face of the Iranian regime is that of its President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who since his election last June has set off reverberations by threatening Israel, questioning the Holocaust and defying demands that Tehran halt its suspected quest for nuclear weapons. Ahmadinejad's excesses have raised anxieties that he may someday draw the country into war with its longtime adversary, the U.S. But for all the bluster, Ahmadinejad's powers are constrained. The legal structure of the Islamic Republic places ultimate political authority in Khamenei, 66, who became Iran's religious leader...
Khamenei's pragmatism may explain why the regime is now showing more willingness to negotiate than it has in months. A Western diplomat and Iran expert believes that Khamenei "definitely" had a hand in Ahmadinejad's letter to U.S. President George W. Bush last month, the first effort at a direct high-level contact between the two countries since 1979. After the U.N. Security Council permanent five plus Germany and the E.U. presented Tehran with a package of incentives aimed at persuading Iran to stop enriching uranium, Khamenei authorized the President to call the proposal a "positive step." Ahmadinejad said...
...what does Khamenei want? In Tehran, speculation about the cleric's ambitions and the future of his partnership with Ahmadinejad is a parlor game of government insiders. Though Khomeini's doctrine of velayet-e faqih grants Khamenei divine right to rule, Khamenei is a breed apart from most Shi'ite mullahs, who still abide by premodern strictures. "He wears a watch," says an intimate, to illustrate how Khamenei differs from his fellow clerics. He hikes in jeans in Tehran's Alborz Mountains and plays the tar, a traditional Iranian stringed instrument. On religious issues, Khamenei is a conservative...
What he lacks is Khomeini's populist charisma, which suggests why he has embraced Ahmadinejad's role of fire-breathing agitator. The two meet one evening a week, and intimates of Khamenei describe their interactions as those of a disciple with his leader. Khamenei praises the President regularly in his speeches and offers criticism in private. Ahmadinejad, for his part, has suppressed dissent and marginalized political opponents whom Khamenei considers a threat. Officials and outside analysts say Khamenei has never felt so in control. "Khamenei feels the President shares his values, so he sees the government as stronger and more...
...President Ahmadinejad has used his defiant posture on the nuclear issue to rally support and expand his own authority. Western diplomats in Iran today report that Ahmadinejad's popularity has grown substantially enough that right now he'd win reelection by a landslide. That's bad news for more pragmatic elements within the regime, because it creates popular pressure on them to refrain from compromise...