Will Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad complete his current term in office. The answer to this no longer appears to center around the prospect of a US or Israeli attack.
Ahmadinejad’s clashes with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei have been extremely public, and seem to be turning ugly today as growing numbers of hardliners and key clerics demand his ouster.
The most recent clash has centered around Ahmadinejad’s failed attempt to fire Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi, who was immediately reappointed by Khamenei. This led Ahmadinejad to publicly boycott all official meetings for weeks.
Khamenei was once a key supporter of Ahmadinejad, a fact which helped enormously in the disputed 2009 election. But even after this election tension was emerging, with then-Vice President Esfandiar Mashaei at issue. Mashaei is now Ahmadinejad’s chief of staff.
And Mashaei remains a particular sore spot, with a number of clerics condemning him. Mashaei’s top aide, a cleric named Hojjatoleslam Amirifar, is even facing charges of “sorcery.” Despite the comparatively silly sound of such an allegation, it actually refers to a very serious allegation in the religiously dominated Iran: religious deviation.
Even some of Ahmadinejad’s closest traditional supporters like Ayatollah Yazdi seem to be heading for the hills, with the hardline cleric accusing Mashaei of having won over Ahmadinejad to “questionable” behavior. With fewer and fewer allies left outside of his inner circle, Ahmadinejad is quickly finding himself in serious danger politically.
(Sigh)
Such statements clearly demonstrate the uselessness of applying a trivial and superficial political analysis to a fundamentally religious issue.
The issue here is the belief in the 'Mahdi'.
At first blush, the Muslim Fundamentalist 'authorities' are encouraged by such a belief (witness the Christian Fundamentalist 'authorities'); because it tends to increase both their wealth and their power.
But, as the time for this 'arrival' gets closer and closer, it is perceived as more and more of a threat to those very same religious 'authorities' because of the Doctrinal issue of 'Rebirth'–which is the only *reasonable* way that any prophet or 'm'essiah can return in the first place; thus raising the question: "If these religious 'authorities' are so *smart*, why do they not teach a specific Doctrine of 'Rebirth'?
And putting that question into the context of a Muslim theocracy becomes explosive.
THAT is the explanation for what is going on here.
Ahmadinejad is not exactly Jesus; much closer to John the Baptist; that is, someone who has to be eliminated by the political and/or religious establishment for predicting the soon arrival of an important religious figure.
WHY PUSH KNOWN DISINFO?