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Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has reason to smile: his opponents in this June's presidential election appear to be in some disarray. Former President Mohammed Khatami withdrew from the race late Monday, declaring his support for former Prime Minister Mir-Hossein Moussavi. The news reflects the confusion in the anti-Ahmadinejad camp that began last week when Moussavi threw his hat in the ring. The reluctant Khatami had previously agreed to stand only after exhaustive negotiations with Moussavi had failed to convince the former Prime Minister to run against Ahmadinejad...
...intentions. But Khatami had long made clear that he would run only as the consensus candidate of the anti-Ahmadinejad forces, and even then, reluctantly. He appears to have taken Moussavi's entry into the race as a cue to bow out and declare his support for the former Prime Minister. (See pictures of the legacy of Iran's revolution...
...Moussavi's appeal lies in the fact that was a popular Prime Minister during the Iran-Iraq war, and is credited with having done a good job managing the nation through some of its most trying economic times. During his tenure, the current Supreme Leader, Ayatullah Ali Khamenei, had been president, and when the two men disagreed, Moussavi is said to have often won the support of then Supreme Leader Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founding father of the Islamic Republic. Arriving to deliver his first speech as a presidential candidate on Saturday in the south of Tehran, Moussavi was greeted...
...Monday morning, hundreds of Israelis milled around the Shalits' protest tent, hoping to meet the captive soldier's father, Noam, a shy, earnest man who swallows his revulsion at the media circus in hopes that it will prod outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert into agreeing to a prisoner swap with Hamas' Islamic militants so that his son will be freed. (See how Hamas is becoming harder to ignore...
...residence to share the results of the Cairo negotiations with his cabinet. If there is an eventual deal, the cabinet may then vote on whether Israel should agree to Hamas terms' for a prisoner exchange. It will be Olmert's last chance to redeem his scandal-ridden tenure as Prime Minister. And like a shadow - or a guilty conscience - Noam Shalit will leave his tent and follow Olmert to his office. There, Shalit will take up a position on a wooded hill across from the Premier's window to remind Olmert that, above politics and all else...