Many events have occurred over the last few weeks. It is now
officially confirmed that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei holds all of the power
in the Iranian government as proven by last week’s elections. In the 290-member
parliament only 64 seats are still being contested with the remainder having
been “won” by those in favor of Khamenei. Before the election even began,
Khamenei exercised his right as Supreme Leader to choose who was allowed to run
for the seats in parliament, and through those means he was able to eliminate many
of the supporters of President Ahmadinejad. This now leaves President
Ahmadinejad as a lame-duck president, but at the present moment he has even
more pressing issues. President Ahmadinejad has made history as the first President
since 1979 to be summoned in front of parliament. This week President
Ahmadinejad was called upon to answer questions about his economic and foreign
policies as well as his 11-day absence following Khamenei’s re-appointment of
an Intelligence Minister previously fired by Ahmadinejad, which some say was an
act of rebellion in response to Khamenei’s position. After attributing the
11-day excursion to simply being just a break from the stress of the job,
Ahmadinejad finished up by saying, “Be fair. Any grade less than a 20 [out of
20] will be rude” (BBC). If somebody has to say that they have done a good job
and deserve to be rewarded for it, then they haven’t done a good job. A good
job should be noticeable and self-evident and it is unnecessary to have to
audibly pat oneself on the back for a job well done. This can also be seen with
the repetitive reassurances by President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu
that they are on the same page about their plan to control Iran’s nuclear
development. This rhetoric actually serves as
reinforcement that they are in fact not on the same page. I am still waiting to
see if in the next short months Israel decides to strike Iran without US
support.
BBC-http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-17364370
It’s odd and true that when two people, in my experience parents, and I guess in this case leaders, say they agree completely on something it usually means they don’t agree, at all. I guess the President can’t really afford to say “yea we totally aren’t on the same page, and Iran is building weapons of mass destruction to use on us as we speak”. But saying that both countries are on the same page after how years of us being on different sides is suspicious, to say the least.
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