M.D. Nalapat
Manipal, India —
Although both of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad’s victories in the 2004
and 2009 presidential races were courtesy of Iran's Supreme Leader Ali
Khamenei, the wily Ayatollah may be preparing to remove a head of state that
has become an international cartoon and a domestic embarrassment.
Those who have
worked closely with Ahmedinejad claim that his decision to appoint the
brilliant – if abrasive – Esfandiar Rahim-Mashaei as his deputy was cleared
informally by the Supreme Leader, as was Mashaei's reference last year to the
"Jewish people" as friends of Iran – for which he has been widely
criticized.
Indeed, both the
Arab and the Persian people have a much better record of treatment of the
Jewish minority than states in Europe such as Poland and Germany. Until
Khomeinism became the state religion in 1979, Jews had an honored place in Iran
and contributed disproportionately to business.
Even Ayatollah
Khomeini, Iran’s first Supreme Leader, forbore from targeting the Jewish people
as such, reserving his verbal venom for the state of Israel. Even today,
several thousand Iranians belonging to the Jewish faith live in Iran, and apart
from the storm trooper brigade represented by organizations such as the
Revolutionary Guard, few Iranians look askance at what is an educated and
liberal community, proud of their Iranian heritage.
