http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/01/07/africa/tehran.php Really interesting if you have a genuine intellectual interest in foreign affairs. I've been posting similar insight for some time... Excerpt
Ahmadinejad enjoyed his fame solely because of America. Iranian people never were happy with him. He presented himself as revolutionary pro-modernization and pro-women rights leader but once elected, he flip flopped and became a conservative islamist. American stance against Iran made him popular, it wont be wrong to say that American media made him a hero down there in ME, where in reality he was just a puppet. People out of fear of Nato attack, stood with Ahmadinejad.
I always thought it was dumb to frame Ahmadinejad as the bad guy. He was convenient for the FOX news crowd, but anyone with any knowledge of foreign affairs understood he was a democratically elected leader, who was not likely to be re-elected. The guy to paint as a bad guy is Khameini, but then that is tricky too because he's the one who issued a fatwa against nuclear proliferation. The irony here is that the previous leader of Iran was the one who halted the weapons program, and was the one who helped negotiate for America with the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, as well as providing intel on the Taliban. It was only when Bush fired up his "Axis of Evil" rhetoric, that the populist Ahmadinejad was able to be elected. Previously, Iran had a moderate-reformist government. One day, people will look back on this, and realize how much our foreign policy has to do with the things going on in the world today. You can't be a clown like Rudy Giuliani at last Saturday's debate, and claim that the world's largest military and economic power does not create blowback with an interventionist foreign policy. No, I'm not pro-Iran. I'm pro-truth and peace. For everyone.