Word: iranian
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...Iranians may have had enough of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's economic missteps, bellicose rhetoric and beige windbreakers. But the man with the best shot at unseating the fiery incumbent in Iran's Presidential elections isn't the youthful or charismatic candidate one might expect. Though he served as Iran's Prime Minister during the 1980s, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, the pragmatic reformist who has emerged as Ahmadinejad's most serious challenger, is stepping back into the political spotlight after what the Iranian media has dubbed "20 years of silence." Mousavi's low profile may work to his benefit. Iranians seeking an alternative...
...appearances, for example, he has repeatedly claimed that Iran's inflation rate is 15%, whereas the country's Central Bank puts it at 25%. He insists, against the evidence, that unemployment and the country's disparity in wealth are both on the decline, and he casts himself as an Iranian Robin Hood, depicted on banners as bowing to poor old farmers and deprived children. And in a neat trick for an incumbent, he styles himself as an insurgent outsider: "For four years, power has been out of their hands," says one Ahmadinejad campaign ad. "If we stay for another four...
...Following his pummeling of opposition candidates in the debates, the President's supporters roamed the streets of Tehran, flush with confidence, brandishing the Iranian flag. But instead of throwing in the towel, Ahmadinejad's challengers went on the offensive. Mousavi, Karroubi and Mohsen Rezai, a conservative challenger, turned their debates with one another into condemnations of Ahmadinejad...
...like Hadian, are now predicting a Mousavi victory in the first round. (If no candidate wins a simple majority in Friday's vote, the top two contenders will meet in a runoff a week later.) Others are more cautious, unsure of the mood outside the capital and aware that Iranian elections are notoriously difficult to predict...
...hour after Barack Obama's Cairo speech, I realized that the leader of Hamas was calling the Israeli people, and their leaders, Israelis. That seemed new. The usual term of art used by Islamic militants is "Zionists" or worse. A few days later in Iran, for example, I watched Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad say in a debate, "I don't like to call them Israelis. Their leaders are so unclean that they could wash themselves in the cleanest waters and still be dirty...