Is it Ahmadinejad bye bye?

Ahmadinejad draws support mainly from the urban poor and rural areas, while his rivals, mostly Mir Hosssain Mousavi, have huge support among the middle classes and the educated urban population. There will most likely be a runoff election as any candidate must win 50% of the vote. That seems sensible to me.

Regardless, who ever wins, must pay the piper, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the "Supreme Jurist."

Recall the scenes of joyous crowds in Tieneman Square. The Iranian military and the mullahs do as well.

Worth Every Billion Spent and Life Destroyed

Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki visits Iran


Maliki hopes to use the two-day visit, including a meeting with Iranian President Ahmadinejad, to allay Tehran's concerns about U.S. influence in Iraq.

By Kimi Yoshino LA Times
January 4, 2009

Reporting from Baghdad -- Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri Maliki arrived in Iran on Saturday for a two-day visit with top leaders, during which he is expected to allay Tehran's concerns about the United States' continuing influence in Iraq.

The visit is Maliki's fourth since he was elected and comes just days after the U.S. handed over military control of the capital's Green Zone to Iraq and began a drawdown that is to lead to all American troops leaving the country by the end of 2011.

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I was quite relieved to find out that our hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of lives investment in Iraqi freedom and democracy will not give us too much influence over Iraq. One should not take these things too seriously, but should defer to the genius, planning and frugality of spending of our capital and assets, by our rulers and masters in Washington.

Moreover, let us not forget, they are all men of honor.

Oliver Stone Making a Movie about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Stone chatting with Fidel.

Stone plans Ahmadinejad the movie


Ed Pilkington
Wednesday August 29, 2007
The Guardian

One minute, he's denouncing George Bush, the next he's accepting an invitation for a biopic from Oliver Stone. No one can accuse Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of leading a dull life.

Barely had the dust settled on the war of words between the Iranian president and his counterpart in Washington yesterday than Mr Ahmadinejad was fielding questions about his prospects in Hollywood. To go from a pronouncement about Iran's nuclear future to a discussion about his own potential celluloid future without stuttering was quite an achievement.

Quizzed about Stone's desire to make a documentary about his life, Mr Ahmadinejad said: "I have no objection, generally speaking." Stone has a history of documentaries on American figures of hate. In 2003 he made a film on Fidel Castro which was praised on the left for debunking the myth of a Cuban monster and condemned by the right for soft soaping him.

That Mr Ahmadinejad should have no objections to being the next subject of a Stone documentary comes as a surprise, as the last word heard on the matter was a rejection. Last month the Iranian president's media adviser said Mr Ahmadinejad was against the movie.



"It is right that this person [Stone] is considered part of the opposition in the US, but opposition in the US is a part of the great satan. We believe that the American cinema lacks culture and art," he said.

To accuse one of America's most famous artists of coming from a country with no art is one thing; to accuse him of being part of the great satan quite another. Stone shot back: "I have been called a lot of things, but never a great satan.

"I wish the Iranian people well, and only hope their experience with an inept, rigid ideologue president goes better than ours."

British hostages to be freed. Ahmadinejad kicks the ball down the road.

Iran 'to release British sailors'

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says 15 British naval personnel captured in the Gulf will be freed.
He repeated allegations that the British sailors and marines "invaded" Iranian waters, but said they would be freed as a "gift" to Britain.

He made the announcement at a news conference, in which he also awarded medals to the commanders who captured the British personnel in the Gulf.

Britain says the 15 were in Iraqi waters under a UN mandate.

Mr Ahmadinejad also criticised the US-led invasion of Iraq and Israel's war in Lebanon.

He used a news conference marking the Persian New Year to condemn the countries he said were behind "misery" and "destruction" in the world.

He said there did not appear to be anyone "to stand up and defend the rights of those oppressed".

He opened the news conference with references to the Islamic holy book, the Koran, then made a wide-ranging speech about the modern history of the Middle East, while attacking the West.

The invasion of Iraq was based on the false premise that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, he said, but even now "the occupation forces continue to stay there and people are still being killed".

Sky News has an interesting interactive chart of the power bases in Iran.

Iranians want trouble again . Give it to them.

Iran has said that British naval personnel seized at gunpoint in the Shatt-al-Arab waterway had confessed to illegally entering Iranian waters.

"The investigation, and confessions that we have, shows they have been arrested in Iranian waters," an armed forces commander told state radio.

The 15 captured British naval personnel were today reported to have been moved to Tehran as Iran raised the stakes in the escalating diplomatic crisis.

Many pundits are wondering who is behind it. Why? Why now? What do they want? Westhawk makes the observation that the incident is manufactured and...

Naturally, it is a risky business to manufacture international incidents to cover up bad news elsewhere. Perhaps a different junior officer with the British boarding party, under slightly different circumstances, might have chosen to resist capture. In that scenario, the day could have ended with a surface naval engagement, an air strike on an Iranian naval base, and lots of blood and oil on the water. Next would come statesmen on all sides pondering what must be done to protect their nations’ prestige.

Senior leaders in Tehran must now be wondering what trouble their president will blunder into next. And whether he or Iran will be able to wriggle out from the next incident without gunfire and explosions. Military escalation, even if blundered into, plays right into the air and naval power dominance of the Americans. From this perspective, President Ahmadinejad may be America’s best friend and Iran’s walking time-bomb.

Blunder or purposeful. It is time to bite on the bait. Punish Iran and use some steel teeth.