> "...the other thing is that although Ahmadinejad has very populist
> rhetoric he is actually a neoliberal bastard economically, so...."
It is quite right that privatization sales reached a new record under Ahmadinejad in 2007, close to $5bn. However, as far as I can find out, this was because Khamenei over-ruled his objections to the privatization programme, which slowed down dramatically during his first two years in office. Certainly, his spending splurge and interest rate cuts don't look decidedly like the policies of a free market hawk. I'm not saying that this makes Ahmadinejad a "progressive", by no means, just that his brand of reaction isn't necessarily neoliberal.