Iran's Supreme Leader Gives Ultimatum to Ahmadinejad

[Winehole23]

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to accept the reinstatement of the country's intelligence chief or resign, reports emerged Friday.

Khamenei, who, according to Iran's cons ution, has the final word on all state affairs, rejected Ahmadinejad's decision last month to dismiss Heydar Moslehi.

According to a report by local Iranian website Ayandeh, presidential adviser Morteza Aqa-Tehrani said that the ayatollah told Ahmadinejad in a Friday meeting that he should accept Moslehi or quit.



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http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=219589

[TDMVPDPOY]

how come the middle east still allows the ayatollahs to push around the president, this is not like the golden/middle ages where kings and queens listen to the catholic church...

[Nbadan]

This is what happens when you inter-twine church and state....our founders fled because of this ....

[Wild Cobra]

how come the middle east still allows the ayatollahs to push around the president, this is not like the golden/middle ages where kings and queens listen to the catholic church...

Please...

It's a farce of a democracy. Ahmadinejad wasn't freely elected. Not like we consider free anyway.

They sure have a lot of people fooled now, don't they.

[4>0rings]

Why doesn't Ahmadinejad play it smart and get a whole army group of his most loyal followers, pay them off and promise their highest generals les in the new regime. Have all the Ayatollahs murdered in their sleep, their families too, and consolidate power.

[Winehole23]

i love reading spurstalk for this type of informed and nuanced debate about the internal politics of iran

What did you contribute besides your rank disdain?

[Winehole23]

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has survived one of the most turbulent political storms of his seven-year presidency, a stand-off with Iran's supreme religious leader that caused some to believe he would be impeached or forced to resign as early as this past weekend.

But Mr. Ahmadinejad arrived in Istanbul today for an international conference as planned, after accusing political enemies of dirty tricks and brushing off his weeks-long defiance of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. At issue was a tussle over the key post of the Intelligence minister and the powerful role of Ahmadinejad's chief of staff and in-law, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20110509/wl_csm/382791

[Lizard_King]

Ok? what's the point of this thread?

[Winehole23]

Current events capsule, related to Iran. The Supreme leader is large and in charge -- Ahmadinejad ain't . Theocracy is a ..

[boutons_deux]

Please...

It's a farce of a democracy. Ahmadinejad wasn't freely elected. Not like we consider free anyway.

They sure have a lot of people fooled now, don't they.

If "Christian" supremacists ever get control of UCA, there would no more elections. God elected them because they are so holy and "Christian".

btw, the Pilgrims were not tolerant of religions and other bizarro sects other than their own.

[RandomGuy]

Why doesn't Ahmadinejad play it smart and get a whole army group of his most loyal followers, pay them off and promise their highest generals les in the new regime. Have all the Ayatollahs murdered in their sleep, their families too, and consolidate power.

Because the foundations of the modern Iranian state lay with the Ayatollahs themselves. Such a move would precipitate an instant civil war.

Shia islam, unlike sunni islam, recognizes the pre-eminance of the Ayatollahs in all matters concerning islam. They fucntion in a manner similar to the Pope for catholocism. Killing them would be viewed rather dimly, to put it mildly.

Ahmadinejad does have allies within various military and paramilitary organizations, but does not have, by the analysis that I have read, a consolidated power base that would form them behind him in such a move.

What you see here are tensions between a sort of nationalism and theology.

In this case the military-minded nationalists will probably lose out. It seems to me that Ahmedinidork has finally overstepped his bounds, and has left himself politically weakened.

One amusing outgrowth of running a nation on religion, is that you have to worry about perceptions that you are religiously pure enough.

Sorcery charges

The dispute over the top intelligence post is just one problem for Ahmadinejad, whose son is married to Mashaie’s daughter. Both men have not hidden their obsession with the 12th Imam – the Muslim messiah who Shiites believe will return one day to bring justice to the world – nor their view that this apocalyptic return is imminent.

But many in Iran, including many clerics, see a swift return of the messiah as supers ion only – a view that played into the arrest of a handful of Ahmadinejad allies for "sorcery."

Among them was Abbas Amirifar, who heads the president’s cultural affairs office, and was picked up on May 1 for promoting a DVD called “The Appearance is Imminent” that describes the president, supreme leader and chief of Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah movement, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, as paving the way for the return of the 12th Imam.

Other arrests have also been reported among those close to Mashaie – whom Ahmadinejad is widely believed to be positioning to succeed him as Iran’s next president – for “sorcery” and summoning of spirits.

“Certain people within the regime have forgotten the values of the revolution and seek to misrepresent Islam … but the people do not follow demons or djinns, and will not tolerate such deviance,” warned Revolutionary Guard commander Mohammad Ali Jafari.

"sorcery".

Booga booga booga!

[RandomGuy]

i love reading spurstalk for this type of informed and nuanced debate about the internal politics of iran

We do what we can, in between ing about the lakers and wondering when Timmy will retire.

[TeyshaBlue]

We do what we can, in between ing about the lakers and wondering when Timmy will retire.

[Winehole23]

Theocracy is a ..

...but it keeps demagogic nationalists like Ahmadinejad in check.

[Winehole23]

If Ahmadinejad does not submit to the ultimate spiritual authority, his piety comes into question. In a theocratic state refinement of piety is an essentially political question.

[RandomGuy]

If Ahmadinejad does not submit to the ultimate spiritual authority, his piety comes into question. In a theocratic state refinement of piety is an essentially political question.

That is what you get when your goverment is based on supers ion.

Yeah, I went there.