The Perfect Soldier: Special Operations, Commandos, and the Future of Us Warfare by James F. Dunnigan
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Dirty Little Secrets
Ahmadinejad Seen As a Loser Back Home
by James Dunnigan
August 22, 2006
Discussion Board on this DLS topic
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has not had a good
year, his first year as president of Iran. While he has attracted
enormous amounts of international media and diplomatic attention for of
his outspoken calls for the destruction of Israel, at home he is
considered a failure. While often described as a reformer, able
administrator and pragmatist, he has not used those skills as
president, to the same extent he did while mayor of Tehran. This has
disappointed a lot of people. Instead of reform, Ahmadinejad has
concentrated on developing nuclear weapons, and cracking down on
political reformers. Ahmadinejad wants nuclear weapons, and he wants
Israel and the United States destroyed. He does not want any Iranian
opposition to the dictatorship of the clerics. While technically a
democracy, you cannot run for office unless you are approved by a
committee of senior clerics (the Council of Guardians). Ahmadinejad has
shut down more opposition and reformist media, and put more reformers
in jail. Ahmadinejad believes in free speech for himself, but not for
anyone who disagrees with him.
Ahmadinejad was able to play his nuclear weapons campaign so that
it appealed to Iranian nationalism. But opinion polls indicate that
that has had only a limited impact. Overall, Iranians are angry at
Ahmadinejad for not doing anything to get the economy going. Despite
the rising price of oil, Iran's big export, most Iranians are still
poor. Iranians blame this on incompetence and corruption among the
religious leaders that dominate the government. The nuclear weapons
program is now perceived as another example of incompetence.
Ahmadinejad's battle with the UN, over inspections of the Iranian
nuclear program, are moving towards the imposition of international
economic sanctions. These will hurt all Iranians. The poor will get
poorer, and the religious leaders will still have their fancy cars and
big houses.
The Hizbollah war in Lebanon is also unpopular. Iranians have now
been reminded that $250 million of their money goes to Hizbollah each
year. That amount will probably increase, to repair the damage done by
Israeli smart bombs. While Ahmadinejad makes a lot of noise about
destroying Israel, the jokes in Iran are more about how Israeli smart
bombs are picking the pockets of Iranians.
Ahmadinejad has not done much for morale in the armed forces
either. While new Russian weapons are appreciated, there are still not
enough spare parts, much less upgrades, for all the older American and
European equipment. Iran builds a lot of its own weapons now, but these
are all low-tech knock-offs of, for the most part, simple Russian
stuff. Iranian engineers and scientists are, at least in private, not
proud of this, and know they could do better without all these
embargoes and restrictions. If only that idiot Ahmadinejad would shut
up, if only the clerics would allow free elections. If only.
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