Quote:
Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame
And that right there leads me to believe that while there are moderate Ayatollah's (I'm not disputing that) there are just as many hard-liners with equal or greater power that are not going to let widespread political reform happen.
And when I say Mahmoud is a puppet, he essentially is - he's a hand-picked candidate from the Council of Guardians, a council which has jurors approved by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a man known for his staunch opposition to Israel and the West. This is, as you should obviously know, in addition to the Council of Gauardians approving the Assembly of Experts. The Council is composed of "jurors who are supposed to be conscious and politically aware of the issues of the day."
For you to say that Mahmoud isn't a puppet of Ayatollah Khamenei and the Assembly of Experts is completely laughable. Just laughable.
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Ah, now we're getting somewhere: Ahmadinejad as a puppet of Khamenei? I agree with that 100% (Well, maybe 80%; the other 20% is puppet of various military interests). My problem was always with you grouping all of the Ayatollah together as one organized entity.
Not really a puppet of the AoE though: the AoE largely opposes Ahmadinejad but don't have the authority to directly oppose him except through tersely worded statements by individual members (which we do see a lot of); they have the power to directly oppose the Supreme Leader, but a lot of them are not sure that such a move would be successful or result in reform. Do they lack the courage to act in the best interests of their country? Possibly. Are they more interested in self-preservation? Very possibly. Do they actually control Ahmadinejad in anything beyond tacit acceptance? No.