Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (Persian: محمود احمدی‌نژاد‎, Mahmūd Ahmadinezhād [mæhˈmuːd(-e) æhmædiːneˈʒɒːd] ( listen),^[2][3][4] born 28 October 1956)^[5][6] is the sixth and current President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the main political leader of the Alliance of Builders of Islamic Iran, a coalition of conservative political groups in the country.

 

An engineer and teacher from a poor background,^[7] Ahmadinejad joined the Office for Strengthening Unity^[8] after the Islamic Revolution. Appointed a provincial governor, he was removed after the election of President Mohammad Khatami and returned to teaching.^[9] Tehran's council elected him mayor in 2003.^[10] He took a religious hard line, reversing reforms of previous moderate mayors.^[11] His 2005 presidential campaign, supported by the Alliance of Builders of Islamic Iran, garnered 62% of the runoff election votes, and he became President on 3 August 2005.^[12][13] His second presidency term ends on 3 August 2013. He is not eligible to run for another term under the current Iranian constitution.

Ahmadinejad is a controversial figure both within Iran and internationally.^{[citation needed]} He has been criticized domestically for his economic lapses^[14] and disregard for human rights.^[15] Internationally he is criticized for his hostility towards some countries, most notably Israel, and the United States of America. He launched a gas rationing plan in 2007 to reduce the country's fuel consumption, and cut the interest rates that private and public banking facilities could charge.^[16][17][18] He supports Iran's nuclear program. His election to a second term in 2009 was widely disputed^[19][20] and caused widespread protests domestically and drew significant international criticism.^[21] On 14 March 2012, Ahmadinejad became the first president of the Islamic Republic of Iran to be summoned by the Islamic Consultative Assembly to answer questions regarding his presidency.^[22][23]

 

Early life

Ahmadinejad was born near Garmsar, in the village of Aradan, in Semnan province. His father, Ahmad, was an ironworker, grocer, barber, blacksmith and religious Shia who taught the Quran.^[24] His mother, Khanom, was a Sayyida, an honorific title given to those believed to be direct bloodline descendants of the Islamic prophet Muhammad.^[24] Ahmadinejad's father changed his name from "Saborjhian"^[25] or "Sabaghian"^[26] when Ahmadinejad was four years old to avoid discrimination when the family moved to Tehran. Sabor is Persian for thread painter,^[27] a once common occupation within the Semnan carpet industry. Ahmadinejad was chosen as it means from the race of Ahmad, one of the names given to Muhammad.

In 1976, Ahmadinejad took Iran's national university entrance contests. According to his autobiography, he was ranked 132nd out of 400,000 participants that year,^[28] and soon enrolled in the Iran University of Science and Technology (IUST) as an undergraduate student of civil engineering. He earned his PhD (1997) in transportation engineering and planning from Iran University of Science and Technology, located at Tehran, when he was the Mayor of Ardabil Province, located at the north-west of the country.

 

Supporters of Ahmadinejad consider him a "simple man" who leads a "modest" life.^[29] As president, he wanted to continue living in the same house in Tehran his family had been living in until his security advisers insisted that he should move. Ahmadinejad had the antique Persian carpets in the Presidential palace sent to a carpet museum, and opted instead to use inexpensive carpets. He is said to have refused the V.I.P. seat on the Presidential plane, and that he eventually replaced it with a cargo plane instead.^[9][30] Also upon gaining Iran's presidency, Ahmadinejad held his first cabinet meeting in the Imam Reza shrine at Mashhad, an act perceived as "pious".^[31]

 Administrative and academic careers

Some details of Ahmadinejad's life during the 1980s are not publicly known, but it is known that he held a number of administrative posts in the province of West Azerbaijan, Iran.^[9]

Many reports say that after Saddam Hussein ordered the invasion of Iran, Ahmadinejad joined the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution^[10] and served in their intelligence and security apparatus,^[10] but his advisor Mojtaba Samareh Hashemi says, "He has never been a member or an official member of the Revolutionary Guards", having been a Basiji-like volunteer instead.^[32]

Ahmadinejad was accepted to a Master of Science program at his alma mater in 1986. He joined the faculty there as a lecturer in 1989,^[7][33] and in 1997 received his doctorate in civil engineering and traffic transportation planning.^[7][10]

  Embassy siege

Main article: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the 1979 hostage crisis

Shortly after Ahmadinejad was elected president, some western media outlets published claims that he was among the students who stormed the US embassy in Tehran, sparking the Iran hostage crisis. This claim has been denied by the Iranian government, the Iranian opposition as well as a CIA investigation on the matter.

  Early political career

After the Islamic Revolution, Ahmadinejad became a member of the Office for Strengthening Unity,^[8] an organization developed to prevent students from sympathizing or allying with the budding Mojahedin-e Khalq.^[8]

He first took political office as unelected governor to both Maku and Khoy in West Azarbaijan Province during the 1980s.^[10] He eventually became an advisor to the governor general of Kurdistan Province for two years.^[7][33] During his doctoral studies at Tehran, he was appointed governor general of newly formed Ardabil Province from 1993 until Mohammad Khatami removed him in 1997,^[33] whereupon he returned to teaching.^[10]

  Mayor of Tehran

In 2003, a 12-percent turnout elected conservative candidates from the Alliance of Builders of Islamic Iran to the City Council of Tehran.^[7] The Council appointed Ahmadinejad mayor.^[10]

As mayor, he reversed changes made by previous moderate and reformist mayors. He put religious emphasis on the activities of cultural centres they had founded, publicised the separation of elevators for men and women in the municipality offices,^[11] and suggested that people killed in the Iran–Iraq War be buried in major city squares of Tehran. He also worked to improve the traffic system and put an emphasis on charity, such as distributing free soup to the poor.

After his election to the presidency, Ahmadinejad's resignation as the Mayor of Tehran was accepted on 28 June 2005. After two years as mayor, Ahmadinejad was one of 65 finalists for World Mayor in 2005, selected from 550 nominees, only nine of them from Asia.^[34] He was among three strong candidates for the top-ten list, but his resignation made him ineligible.^[34]

  Presidency

Further information: Government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (2005–present)

 2005 campaign

Ahmadinejad was not widely known when he entered the presidential election campaign as he had never run for office before, (he had been mayor of Tehran for only two years and had been appointed, not elected),^[35] although he had already made his mark in Tehran for rolling back earlier reforms. He was/is a member of the Central Council of the Islamic Society of Engineers, but his key political support is inside the Alliance of Builders of Islamic Iran (Abadgaran or Developers).^[36] He was also helped by support from supreme leader Ali Khamenei, who some described Ahmadinejad as a "protege" of.^[37]

Ahmadinejad generally sent mixed signals about his plans for his presidency, perhaps to attract both religious conservatives and the lower economic classes.^[38] His campaign slogan was: "It's possible and we can do it".^[39]

In the campaign, he took a populist approach. He emphasized his own modest life, and compared himself with Mohammad Ali Rajai, Iran's second president. Ahmadinejad said he planned to create an "exemplary government for the people of the world" in Iran. He was a "principlist", acting politically based on Islamic and revolutionary principles. One of his goals was "putting the petroleum income on people's tables", meaning Iran's oil profits would be distributed among the poor.^[40]

Ahmadinejad was the only presidential candidate who spoke out against future relations with the United States. He told Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting the United Nations was "one-sided, stacked against the world of Islam."^[41] He opposed the veto power of the UN Security Council's five permanent members: "It is not just for a few states to sit and veto global approvals. Should such a privilege continue to exist, the Muslim world with a population of nearly 1.5 billion should be extended the same privilege." He defended Iran's nuclear program and accused "a few arrogant powers" of trying to limit Iran's industrial and technological development in this and other fields.

 

In his second-round campaign, he said, "We didn't participate in the revolution for turn-by-turn government....This revolution tries to reach a world-wide government." He spoke of an extended program using trade to improve foreign relations, and called for greater ties with Iran's neighbours and ending visa requirements between states in the region, saying that "people should visit anywhere they wish freely. People should have freedom in their pilgrimages and tours."^[39]

Ahmadinejad described Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi, a senior cleric from Qom, as his ideological and spiritual mentor. Mesbah founded the Haghani School of thought in Iran. He and his team strongly supported Ahmadinejad's 2005 presidential campaign.^[42]

 

Nuclear program

 

Ahmadinejad has been a vocal supporter of Iran's nuclear program, and has insisted that it is for peaceful purposes. He has repeatedly emphasized that building a nuclear bomb is not the policy of his government. He has said that such a policy is "illegal and against our religion."^[105][106] He also added at a January 2006 conference in Tehran that a nation with "culture, logic and civilization" would not need nuclear weapons, and that countries that seek nuclear weapons are those that want to solve all problems by the use of force.^[107] In a 2008 interview Ahmadinejad elaborated that countries striving to obtain nuclear weapons are not politically progressive nations and those who possess them and continually make new generations of such bombs are "even more backward".^[108]

 

In April 2006, Ahmadinejad announced that Iran had successfully refined uranium to a stage suitable for the nuclear fuel cycle. In a speech to students and academics in Mashhad, he was quoted as saying that Iran's conditions had changed completely as it had become a nuclear state and could talk to other states from that stand.^[109] On 13 April 2006, Iranian news agency, IRNA, quoted Ahmadinejad as saying that the peaceful Iranian nuclear technology would not pose a threat to any party because "we want peace and stability and we will not cause injustice to anyone and at the same time we will not submit to injustice."^[110] Nevertheless, Iran's nuclear policy under Ahmadinejad's administration has received much criticism, spearheaded by the United States and Israel. The accusations include that Iran is striving to obtain nuclear arms and developing long-range firing capabilities—and that Ahmadinejad issued an order to keep UN inspectors from freely visiting the nation's nuclear facilities and viewing their designs, in defiance of an IAEA resolution.^{[111][112][113][114]} Following a May 2009 test launch of a long-range missile, Ahmadinejad was quoted as telling the crowd that with its nuclear program, Iran was sending the West a message that "the Islamic Republic of Iran is running the show."^[115]

 

Despite Ahmadinejad's vocal support for the program, the office of the Iranian president is not directly responsible for nuclear policy. It is instead set by the Supreme National Security Council. The council includes two representatives appointed by the Supreme Leader, military officials, and members of the executive, judicial, and legislative branches of government, and reports directly to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who issued a fatwa against nuclear weapons in 2005.^[116] Khamenei has criticized Ahmadinejad's "personalization" of the nuclear issue.^[117]

 

Ahmadinejad vowed in February 2008 that Iran will not be held back from developing its peaceful nuclear program^[118] and has stated that at least 16 different peaceful uses for nuclear technology have so far been identified.^[108] Ahmadinejad has stressed the importance of the right to peaceful nuclear development. Iranian opposition leader, Mousavi, has even stated that giving up the country's nuclear program would be "irreparable" and that the Iranian people support the nuclear program. "No one in Iran will accept suspension," Mousavi has said, adding that if elected, his policy would be to work to provide "guarantees" that Tehran's nuclear activities would never divert to non-peaceful aims.^[119]

 

In October 2009 the United States, France and Russia proposed a U.N.-drafted deal with Iran regarding its nuclear program, in an effort to find a compromise between Iran's stated need for a nuclear reactor and the concerns of those who are worried that Iran harbors a secret intent of developing a nuclear weapon. After some delay in responding, on October 29, Ahmadinejad seemed to change his tone towards the deal. "We welcome fuel exchange, nuclear co-operation, building of power plants and reactors and we are ready to co-operate," he said in a live broadcast on state television.^[120] However, he added that Iran would not retreat "one iota" on its right to a sovereign nuclear program.^[121]