Like him, loath him, but one cannot ignore the Iranian President. The West is critical of him and the drums are ever-louder on some sort of attack on Iran in the next little while. Foolish as that might be, Iran and its ever-newsworthy President will continue to feature in the news.
The Boston Review backgrounds the man in a piece by Abbas Milani [Hamid and Christian Moghadam Director of Iranian Studies at Stanford University and a research fellow at the Hoover Institution] "Pious Populist - Understanding the rise of Iran's president"
"Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who won a surprise election victory in 2005, has descended into infamy in the United States as a dangerous demagogue and an anti-Semite. Ahmadinejad must be taken seriously, however, and not just for his threats, verbal outbursts, and political provocations. Wherever he speaks and whomever he addresses, Ahmadinejad is always communicating with a domestic audience of millions of citizens in Iran, as well as with the rest of the Muslim world. He knows his audience well and, while he may convey an air of clumsy haphazardness, his discourse and demeanor express a meticulously crafted, politically astute message of pious populism. He is very much a product of recent Iranian history, and understanding his early years and rise to power provides insight into current circumstances in Iran, his own likely course of action, and the prospects for Iranian political reform."
The Boston Review backgrounds the man in a piece by Abbas Milani [Hamid and Christian Moghadam Director of Iranian Studies at Stanford University and a research fellow at the Hoover Institution] "Pious Populist - Understanding the rise of Iran's president"
"Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who won a surprise election victory in 2005, has descended into infamy in the United States as a dangerous demagogue and an anti-Semite. Ahmadinejad must be taken seriously, however, and not just for his threats, verbal outbursts, and political provocations. Wherever he speaks and whomever he addresses, Ahmadinejad is always communicating with a domestic audience of millions of citizens in Iran, as well as with the rest of the Muslim world. He knows his audience well and, while he may convey an air of clumsy haphazardness, his discourse and demeanor express a meticulously crafted, politically astute message of pious populism. He is very much a product of recent Iranian history, and understanding his early years and rise to power provides insight into current circumstances in Iran, his own likely course of action, and the prospects for Iranian political reform."
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