Friday, May 06, 2011

I Dream of Djinnis

Something is going on in Iran, where President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is feuding with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The spate started when Ahmadinejad attempted to fire his intelligence chief -- a move vetoed by the supreme leader -- and now the Ayatollah is telling Ahmadinejad to reinstate the chief or resign. Meanwhile, several Ahmadinejad allies have been arrested on accusations of sorcery and invoking Djinns (call me an Ahmadinejad apologist, but I'm guessing the charges are trumped up).

Lest anyone get too excited, this appears to be a right vs. right war: President Ahmadinejad hsa been pushing Iran into a considerably more "pure" nationalist direction and has been attempting to arrogate state security power in his own hands; the clerical leadership wants to maintain the theocratic bent of the state and, of course, is less than thrilled to see Ahmadinejad trying to get out from under their thumb. The (relatively) progressive Green Movement is not part of the feud, and if the government does collapse, it will likely be barred from running in any elections.

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