MSNBC: Ahmadinejad's 'Mystical Populism'

This brief profile on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad isn't original, but is interesting insofar as it draws attention to Ahmadinejad's populism, so often neglected in Western coverage of the man and his political outlook. This populist dimension was obvious from the outset, and always the basis of his 2005 presidential election victory i.e. his pledge to combat corruption, redistribute wealth and alleviate the plight and woeful state of Iran's economic underclass. Ahmadinejad's total failure on all counts, however, is a question we'll have to put aside for another time. The vaunted position that foreign policy and Iran's nuclear program were to take, were never really part of the bargain in the domestic debate which led to his election. Professor Ali Ansari, author of Confronting Iran: The Failure of American Foreign Policy and the Roots of Mistrust and Iran, Islam, and Democracy: The Politics of Managing Change, makes some interesting points of which all followers of Iranian politics should be apprised.