Word: iranian
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...Khalilzad, involves trying to draw the Sunnis, including some mainstream insurgent groups, into the political process. (Though the Al-Qaeda in Iraq element grabs much of the media attention, it accounts for no more than about 10% of the insurgency.) U.S. interests both in stabilizing Iraq and in limiting Iranian influence there depend on drawing the majority of the Sunni community into a new national consensus. But unless the bulk of the insurgents who are mounting most of the daily attacks on Coalition forces are offered a path back into Iraq's political life on terms supported by their community...
...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...
...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 in the mold of his predecessor, Khomeini. Khamenei considers the West morally bankrupt and has appointed officials hostile to women's rights and freedom of expression. But when it comes to his health, he places his faith in--along with God--medical...
...cleric's allies are sensitive to the perception that Ahmadinejad's celebrity has caused a decline in the Supreme Leader's public profile. "He's not being overshadowed at all," says the official with close ties to Khamenei. But a senior Iranian official and a Western diplomat say Khamenei reprimanded Ahmadinejad for his declaration that Israel should be "wiped off the map," and analysts in Tehran say Khamenei is worried about Ahmadinejad's uneven management of domestic affairs. The Western diplomat says Ahmadinejad is still "on probation"; some Iranians speculate that his unpredictability may force Khamenei to replace him. Says...
...every time the U.S. contrived to overthrow an elected leader abroad who proved resistant to U.S. aims, some of Teddy's legacy was also at work. There could not have been a more literal legacy than the 1953 coup engineered by the U.S. to oust Mohammed Mossadegh, the Iranian Prime Minister who attempted to nationalize Iran's oil industry. The CIA officer in Tehran who choreographed the overthrow was Roosevelt's grandson Kermit...