An unprecedented power struggle at the heart of the Iranian regime intensified on Friday when it emerged that the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, had given an ultimatum to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to accept his intervention in a Cabinet appointment or resign.
A member of the Iranian parliament, Morteza Agha-Tehrani — who is described as “Ahmadinejad’s moral adviser” — told a gathering of his supporters that a meeting between Ahmadinejad and Khamenei had recently taken place, in which the president was given a deadline to resign or to accept the decision of the ayatollah.
The extraordinary confrontation came to light after Ahmadinejad declined officially to support Khamenei’s reinstatement of a minister whom the president had initially asked to resign.
The rift between the two men grew when the president staged an 11-day walkout in an apparent protest at Khamenei’s decision. In the first Cabinet meeting since ending his protest, the intelligence minister at the center of the row, Heydar Moslehi, was absent and in the second one on Wednesday, he was reportedly asked by Ahmadinejad to leave.
In a video released on Iranian Web sites, Agha-Tehrani quotes Ahmadinejad as saying: “[Khamenei] gave me a deadline to make up my mind. I would either accept [the reinstatement] or resign.”
Although Khamenei is not constitutionally allowed to intervene in Cabinet appointments, an -unwritten law requires all -officials to always abide by the supreme leader without showing any opposition.
Clerics close to Khamenei have launched a campaign to highlight his role in Iranian politics, saying that to disobey him is equal to apostasy, as he is “God’s representative on earth.”
Meanwhile, the president was reportedly absent from religious ceremonies this week at Khamenei’s house, where he was publicly criticized by close allies of the ayatollah. Iranian officials are traditionally required to participate in such ceremonies in order to cover up any political rift that might compromise Khamenei’s power.
Iran’s semi-official Mehr news agency reported on Thursday that several members of parliament had revived a bid to summon Ahmadinejad for questioning over “the recent events.” It said 90 MPs had signed the petition, up from only 12 last week.
Under Iranian law, at least 85 more signatures are required for a possible impeachment of the president.
Supporters of Khamenei say that Ahmadinejad is surrounded by “deviants” in his inner circle, including his controversial chief of staff, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, who wants to undermine the involvement of clerics in Iran’s politics. Mashaei and his allies have recently been accused of using supernatural powers and invoking djinns (spirits) in pursuing the government’s policies.
Iran’s elite revolutionary guards, who played an important role in securing Ahmadinejad a second term in Iran’s 2009 disputed elections, have distanced themselves from Ahmadinejad in recent months as Mashaei’s “secular” views have become more pronounced.
In the face of the recent confrontation with Khamenei, Ahmadinejad has been left isolated, with only a handful of serious supporters.
HIGH HOPES: The power source is expected to have a future, as it is not dependent on the weather or light, and could be useful for places with large desalination facilities A Japanese water plant is harnessing the natural process of osmosis to generate renewable energy that could one day become a common power source. The possibility of generating power from osmosis — when water molecules pass from a less salty solution to a more salty one — has long been known. However, actually generating energy from that has proved more complicated, in part due the difficulty of designing the membrane through which the molecules pass. Engineers in Fukuoka, Japan, and their private partners think they might have cracked it, and have opened what is only the world’s second osmotic power plant. It generates
When a hiker fell from a 55m waterfall in wild New Zealand bush, rescuers were forced to evacuate the badly hurt woman without her dog, which could not be found. After strangers raised thousands of dollars for a search, border collie Molly was flown to safety by a helicopter pilot who was determined to reunite the pet and the owner. A week earlier, an emergency rescue helicopter found the woman with bruises and lacerations after a fall at a rocky spot at the waterfall on the South Island’s West Coast. She was airlifted on March 24, but they were forced to
Showcasing phallus-shaped portable shrines and pink penis candies, Japan’s annual fertility festival yesterday teemed with tourists, couples and families elated by its open display of sex. The spring Kanamara Matsuri near Tokyo features colorfully dressed worshipers carrying a trio of giant phallic-shaped objects as they parade through the street with glee. The festival, as legend has it, honors a local blacksmith in the Edo Period (1603-1868) who forged an iron dildo to break the teeth of a sharp-toothed demon inhabiting a woman’s vagina that had been castrating young men on their wedding nights. A 1m black steel phallus sits in the courtyard of
JAN. 1 CLAUSE: As military service is voluntary, applications for permission to stay abroad for over three months for men up to age 45 must, in principle, be granted A little-noticed clause in sweeping changes to Germany’s military service policy has triggered an uproar after it emerged that the law requires men aged up to 45 to get permission from the armed forces before any significant stay abroad, even in peacetime. The legislation, which went into effect on Jan. 1 aims to bolster the military and demands all 18-year-old men fill out a questionnaire to gauge their suitability to serve in the armed forces, but stops short of conscription. If the “modernized” model fails to pull in enough recruits, parliament will be compelled to discuss the reintroduction of compulsory service, German
RSS