Heres one element of

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Here’s one element of the new wave of fear-mongering articles about the Iranian nuclear program that doesn’t add up to me. It relates to Iranian President Ahmadinejad.

Here’s a portion out of Sy Hersh’s piece in the New Yorker which gives a sense of the line of reasoning …

One former senior United Nations official, who has extensive experience with Iran, depicted the turnover as “a white coup,” with ominous implications for the West. “Professionals in the Foreign Ministry are out; others are waiting to be kicked out,” he said. “We may be too late. These guys now believe that they are stronger than ever since the revolution.” He said that, particularly in consideration of China’s emergence as a superpower, Iran’s attitude was “To hell with the West. You can do as much as you like.”

What doesn’t add up to me is that through much of the past decade we were told that the reformism of Ahmadinejad’s immediate predecessor Mohammad Khatami was not that significant because the real power in Iran, the font of all fundamental decision making is in the Guardian Council and even more the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei.

Given how things developed under Khatami’s presidency, that claim appears to have been borne out.

Now, Khamenei is no great shakes, on a lot of counts. But one mild consolation is that I think this logic applies as much to Ahmadinejad as much as it applied to Khatami. He may be a zealout where Khatami was a reformer. But aren’t we still fundamentally in the same situation: that the key decisions in Iran are made by Khamenei?

If that’s true, then Ahmadinejad really is a secondary player. And building him up as the bogeyman doesn’t really add up.

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