[lbo-talk] Ahmadinejad

[Michael Pugliese]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10313618/site/newsweek/
http://www.newstatesman.com/200512050014
http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2005/11/184cb9fb-887c-4696-8f54-0799df747a4a.html
>...By some accounts, the new president's first deputy, Parvis
Davoudi, recently asked cabinet members during a formal meeting to
pledge their allegiance to the Mahdi in a signed letter. And when
Ahmadinejad was Tehran's mayor, he reportedly refurbished a major
boulevard on grounds that the Mahdi was to travel along it upon his
return. Last week, a videodisc began circulating that reportedly shows
the president chatting with one of the country's leading clerics,
Ayatollah Javadi Amoli. Referring to his September speech to the
United Nations, during which he called for the return of the 12th
imam, the Iranian president confides that he felt himself surrounded
by a radiant light. Not one foreign diplomat blinked during his
speech, he adds. All this has caused a major stir, prompting some
critics to wonder if Ahmadinejad has come to fancy himself as the 12th
imam's representative on Earth—a dangerous notion for a man with a
Ph.D. in traffic management.


>...Prague, 29 November 2005 (RFE/RL) -- According the report by
baztab.com, President Ahmadinejad made the comments in a meeting with
one of Iran's leading clerics, Ayatollah Javadi Amoli.

Ahmadinejad said that someone present at the UN told him that a light
surrounded him while he was delivering his speech to the General
Assembly. The Iranian president added that he also sensed it.

"He said when you began with the words 'in the name of God,' I saw
that you became surrounded by a light until the end [of the speech],"
Ahmadinejad appears to say in the video. "I felt it myself, too. I
felt that all of a sudden the atmosphere changed there, and for 27-28
minutes all the leaders did not blink."

Ahmadinejad adds that he is not exaggerating.

"I am not exaggerating when I say they did not blink; it's not an
exaggeration, because I was looking," he says. "They were astonished
as if a hand held them there and made them sit. It had opened their
eyes and ears for the message of the Islamic Republic."
--
Michael Pugliese