Word: mahmoud
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...that Iran's ambitions are limited to nuclear energy, the regime has asserted its right to develop nuclear power and enrich uranium that could be used in bombs as an end in itself--a symbol of sovereign pride, not to mention a useful prop for politicking. Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has crisscrossed the country in recent months making Iran's right to a nuclear program a national cause and trying to solidify his base of hard-line support in the Revolutionary Guards. The nuclear program is popular with average Iranians and the élites as well. "Iranian leaders have...
...President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad adores the Twelfth Imam, and has dedicated much of his public speeches to pleading for his return, and expounding on the importance of preparing for it. He invokes the Mahdi so frequently, is so suggestive of his own divine guidance, that the ordinary, devout Iranian could be easily made to think the two enjoy a special connection. These religious tendencies irritate many clerics in Iran's theological center, Qom, and serious religious scholars, who feel the president is using the Mahdi mythology to expand his own power, and in the process conflating the Mahdi's attributes with...
...compromise, however, may prove tricky for the Iranian leadership, because uranium enrichment has been turned into matter of national pride by President Mahmoud Ahmedinajad. His populist appeals on the issue, in fact, have been designed to limit the diplomatic wiggle room available to his superiors and rivals in the Iranian power structure. But like the Europeans, Iran's leaders appear to want to avoid a confrontation whose consequences could be unpredictable, so their domestic message would likely emphasize the temporary nature of any suspension, and the political rewards they would gain for doing...
...Mahmoud Abbas may finally have achieved an agreement to govern alongside Hamas, but the Palestinian Authority president has limited political authority even over his own Fatah movement. It's far from clear that the unity agreement will do much to arrest the deteriorating relations between Fatah and Hamas on the ground, and whether it can succeed in restoring the control of a single security force on the streets of Gaza, where competing militias now hold sway. Hamas will expect Abbas to deliver the release of some of its top political leaders recently detained by Israel as the price...
...wasn't hard enough to conceive of Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas having much to talk about given the gulf that divides them at present, there's an additional peril: The more radical elements of Hamas and Fatah have traditionally responded to any movement toward rapprochement or renewed negotiations by launching new acts of violence aimed at provoking harsh Israeli retaliation and, as a result, sabotaging progress. And the political aftermath of Lebanon for the Israeli leader suggests it's unlikely that any such provocation will go unpunished. So, while the leaders do their best to look busy...