
right questions for Iran's president The media circus generated by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's annual visit to the UN General Assembly in New York is a source of great frustration for many Iranians, who wish Western journalists would ask tougher questions about Ahmadinejad's domestic practices. The following questions are culled from Iranian democracy and human rights activists who don't have a chance to query the president directly: Your boss, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was selected by a few dozen clerics more than 20 years ago. Do you believe that he — as his office has asserted — is the prophet's representative on Earth? Khamenei hasn't left Iran since 1989. Nearly half of Iran's population was born after 1989. Do you think this provides him with a good understanding of the modern world in which they live? One of your key clerical backers, Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, proclaimed after your contested reelection in 2009 that obeying you was akin to obeying God. More recently he has asserted that you are under the influence of Satan. What explains Mesbah Yazdi's, or God's, fickleness? There is evidence that your chief adviser, Rahim Mashai, helped secure loans for the leading suspect in a $2.6 billion bank fraud case, the largest embezzlement scandal in Iranian history. You came to office vowing to "cut off the hands" of the corrupt; how will you deal with Mashai? Your opponents in 2009, Mir Hossein Mousavi, 69, and Mehdi Karroubi, 73, have been held <b>...</b>
Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad
Iran
Tehran
Ann
Curry
zaqura
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