Word: iranianized
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...Tuesday, amid reports of escalating violence and protest across his country, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad slipped into a plane and jetted off to Yekaterinburg, a Russian city nestled in the Ural mountains. Iran seethed in the aftermath of Ahmadinejad's disputed election victory last weekend even as foreign journalists were officially barred from reporting street protests a day after the largest demonstrations seen in Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Meanwhile, the powerful Guardian Council is investigating allegations of poll fraud, and has suggested a partial recount - a solution main opposition leader Mir-Hossein Mousavi has rejected...
...called BRIC group - a gang of four emerging world powers in Brazil, Russia, India and China. With the SCO and BRIC meeting at the same place, much of the non-Western world's geopolitical muscle is now rubbing shoulders in the shadow of the Urals. And the Iranian President, who never shies from making bold pronouncements, was not going to miss an opportunity to let loose his usual rhetorical flair. Soon after landing, Ahmadinejad launched a broadside at the fortunes of the West, especially America's, in the wake of the ravages of the global recession and the military quagmires...
...What the Iranian President thinks will emerge in its place is far less obvious. The SCO, in particular, has been perceived since its founding in 2001 as a growing foil to U.S. interests in West Asia. Originally formed to develop dialogue on trade and security issues among nations with old histories of enmity, the SCO comprises China, Russia and four Central Asian states hovering within both Beijing and Moscow's spheres of influence - Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. Tehran under Ahmadinejad had long petitioned to be part of this group but has settled for "observer" status alongside India and Pakistan...
Under Ahmadinejad, Iranian foreign policy has been cultivating a "look east" strategy, securing greater links with its historical neighborhood as governments in Tel Aviv and Washington dial up the heat. In his election campaign, the Iranian President trumpeted his ability to make Iran a leading global power, and he urged those assembled in Yekaterinburg to pursue more coordinated action and policy, like the formation of a joint regional bank in Eurasia. "Taking collective decisions on politics, economics and culture," Ahmadinejad opined, "will facilitate stabilization of the situation in all the countries." (See what Ahmadinejad's win means for other world...
...Twitter and in the blogosphere, where the furor in Iran is unfolding before a rapt global public, hundreds have ridiculed the Iranian President for leaving the country at this moment. Some have likened his departure to a flight 30 years ago, when, heeding the bells of history, the country's teary-eyed Shah strode onto a plane bound for Egypt, never to return as Islamic revolution swept the monarchy aside. But Ahmadinejad will be back, buoyed, if not by a democratic mandate, then by the assurances of a few close friends...