A Star in Islam’s Crescent Moon is rising east of Bethlehem over Iran!
June 3, 2006
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
It has been remarkable to watch the sudden rise to power of President Ahmadinejad in Iran.
The excerpts taken from the New York Times article by Michael Slackman, which follows, give an excellent account of his rise to power, and continued efforts to consolidate his control of the Iranian governmental structure. One can never be sure in an unstable governmental structure what the future of the ruler holds, and for all that I know he could be assassinated tomorrow, but his rise to where he is today has been meteoric and without parallel in the government since the Shah fell in the Islamic revolution.
Begin Excerpts from New York Time Article
Iran Chief Eclipses Power of Clerics
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN
May 28, 2006
TEHRAN, May 27 — President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is trying to consolidate power in the office of the presidency in a way never before seen in the 27-year history of the Islamic Republic, apparently with the tacit approval of Iran’s supreme leader, according to government officials and political analysts here.
That rare unity of elected and religious leadersh
ip at the highest levels offers the United States an opportunity to talk to a government, however combative, that has often spoken with multiple voices. But if Washington, which severed relations with Iran after the 1979 revolution, opened such a dialogue, it could lift the prestige of the Iranian president, who has pushed toward confrontation with the West.
Political analysts and people close to the government here say Mr.
Ahmadinejad and his allies are trying to buttress a system of conservative clerical rule that has lost credibility with the public.
Their strategy hinges on trying to win concessions from the West on Iran’s nuclear program and opening direct, high-level talks with the United States, while easing social restrictions, cracking down on political dissent and building a new
political class from outside the clergy.
Mr. Ahmadinejad is pressing far beyond the boundaries set by other presidents.
For the first time since the revolution, a president has overshadowed the nation’s chief cleric, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on both domestic and international affairs.
He has evicted the former president, Mohammad Khatami, from his offices, taken control of a crucial research organization away from another former president, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, challenged high-ranking clerics on the treatment of women and forced prominent academics out of the university system.
In this theocratic system, where appointed religious leaders hold ultimate power, the presidency is a relatively weak position.
In the multiple layers of power that obscure the governance of Iran, no one knows for certain where the ultimate decisions are being made. But many of those watching in near disbelief at the speed and aggression with which the president is seeking to accumulate power assume that he is operating with the full support of Ayatollah Khamenei.
“Usually the supreme leader would be the front-runner in all internal and external issues,” said Hamidreza Taraghi, the political director of the strongly conservative Islamic Coalition Party.
“Here we have the president out front on all these issues, and the supreme leader is supporting him.”
Mr. Ahmadinejad is pursuing a risky strategy that could offer him a shot at long-term influence over the direction of the country — or ruin. He appears motivated at least in part by a recognition that relying on clerics to serve as the public face of the government has undermined the credibility of both, analysts here said.
The changing nature of Iran’s domestic political landscape has potentially far-reaching implications for the United States. While Iran has adopted a confrontational approach toward the West, it has also signaled — however clumsily — a desire to mend relations. Though the content of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s letter to President Bush was widely mocked here and in Washington for its religious focus and preachy tone, it played well to Iran’s most conservative religious leaders. Analysts here said it represented both Mr.
Ahmadinejad’s independence and his position as a messenger for the system, and that the very act of reaching out was significant.
“If the U.S. had relations with Iran under the reform government, it would not have been a complete relationship,” said Alireza Akhari, a retired general with the Revolutionary Guard and former deputy defense minister, referring to Mr. Khatami’s administration. “But if there can be a détente now that means the whole country is behind relations with the West.”
“The real issue here is we now have a government with no experience running a country and dealing with foreign policy,” said Nasser Hadian, a political science professor at Tehran University and childhood friend of the president.
“He is reshaping the identity of the elite,” said a political science professor in Tehran who asked not to be identified so as not to affect his relations with government officials. “Being against Jews and Zionists is an essential part of this new identity.”
Mr. Ahmadinejad has been far freer to maneuver than his predecessor Mr.
Khatami, whose movement for change frightened religious leaders.
Instead of having to prove his fealty to the system, Mr. Ahmadinejad has been given — or has taken — the opportunity to try to calm the streets. Perhaps most surprising, the man who was rumored to want to segregate men and women on elevators and even sidewalks has emerged as a proponent of women’s rights, challenging some of the nation’s most powerful religious leaders.
Nazila Fathi contributed reporting for this article.
End Excerpts from New York Times Article
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