[octothorp]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

Thanks, Buzz Killington!

Mahmoud is a puppet for the Grand Ayatollahs. Ultimately direct executive control comes from them,

No. Direct Executive Power does not come from them. The Supreme Leader may or may not be a Grand Ayatollah (the current one isn't), and he is appointed by the Assembly of Experts, who are all clerics but may or may not have Ayatollah status. It's worth noting that the previous Supreme Leader overruled the AoE's choice of leader to ensure that Khamenei became his successor.

and if the Ayatollahs truly wanted him out of power, they would have done it during the (fraudulent) June elections if he was that much of a problem.

Not something that they can do without any sort of political or military power. The most senior Grand Ayatollah in Iran slammed the election results, saying that no sane person could possibly believe them, an opinion that was supported by a lot of the Qom religious community. If there is any political change in Iran, moderate Grand Ayatollahs such as Montazeri and Rafsanjani have been campaigning for widespread political reform for years and will be at the forefront of any meaningful change to the power system in the country.

I'm sure they take into account the sentiments of hard-liners, conservatives and the apathetic within their own populations just as much as their regard for the opinions of the international community.

Are you sure you don't mean "I'm wildly speculating" rather than "I'm sure"?

The Ayatollahs are not some innocent party; they groomed Mahmoud to the position he's in today. They're as much at fault for Iran's spectacle as Ahmedinejad himself.

No, Mahmoud was actually not groomed by any religious group. His mentor was a single, non-grand Ayatollah. He was the choice of secularists and military groups, and received support from the main religious right only when their main candidate floundered. During his time in power, he's consistently removed clerics from positions of power and promoted military figures in their place. To suggest that he's the Grand Ayatollahs' puppet is to be seriously misinformed about the nature of the Ayatollahs and Ahmadinejad's relationship with them.