Free Republic

Three Iranian ministers have been dismissed and their departments dismantled in a government restructuring that cuts the number of ministries from 21 to 17, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's president, has announced. Ahmadinejad announced the sackings of the country's ministers of oil, social welfare, and industry and mining, following a recent law passed by parliament which requires him to shrink the country's number of ministries, the ISNA news agency reported on Saturday. While a change was expected, the sudden dismissal comes as a surprise, as all three were considered staunch supporters of Ahmedinejad, and because Iran's parliament is still discussing an earlier...

And we thought these guys couldn’t get any crazier? While we’re all too familiar with the loony antics of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the zealotry of the ayatollahs, things have taken an extra screwy turn for the nut jobs in Iran. I know, you didn’t think these clowns could get any crazier. Me neither. All is not well between President Mahmoud and Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei. As is the case with political power struggles in general, accusations and charges of undue influence abound. However, this battle has “crazy Iranians” written all over it: The supreme leader has accused our pal...

The Iranian government has produced a bone-chilling documentary that claims that Ayatollah Khamenei, President Ahmadinejad, and Hassan Nasrallah are talked about in Islamic prophecy as leaders who will wage war to bring about the arrival of the Hidden Imam, which the film says is “very close” to happening. Reza Kahlili, a former member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards who spied for the CIA and authored A Time to Betray last year, procured the entire film and says it was created by close associates of Ahmadinejad and was shown to top clerics two weeks ago. His chief of staff, Esfandiar Rahim...

There is much turbulence in the Iranian government today. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is not happy that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad fired Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi last month. He has now given Ahmadinejad an ultimatum to either re-instate Moslehi or resign. A sullen Ahmadinejad caught a bad case of the “blue flu,” and stopped showing up for work. According to the BBC, one of his aides wrote a blog post that said the Iranian president “is in pain, as if a thorn is stuck in his throat… he cannot take it out or swallow in.” Try that one the next time...

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has final say on all state affairs, issues ultimatum after vetoing President Ahmadinejad's decision last month to dismiss Heydar Moslehi; according to website Ayandeh the president is yet to respond. The website Ayandeh quoted presidential advisor, Morteza Aqa-Tehrani, saying that in a meeting this week between Khamenei and Ahmadinejad, the ayatollah has pushed the president to either accept Moslehi or resign. Ahmadinejad has not yet responded with a final decision on the supreme leader's ultimatum, Agha-Tehrani added. The Ayandeh report is yet to be confirmed by official or local media. Khamenei firmly supported...

A political dispute between Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country's supreme leader is reported to have intensified. Ahmadinejad is said to be contemplating resigning after Heidar Moslehi, the intelligence minister he had sacked, was reinstated by Khamenei. The president is understood to have shirked some of his duties and skipped cabinet meetings for the past ten days in anger over the decision. Mehrdad Khonsari, an analyst with the Centre for Arab and Iranian Studies in London, told Al Jazeera on Friday that the dispute, which began last month, had become "serious". "It shows the level...

A few minutes ago on May 5, 2011, Arab TV announced that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khameini requested Iran's President Ahmadinejad to step down from his post. This has not been confirmed nor verified by Western media as yet, however, it has been reported that several of his close aides are already under arrest. The UK Guardian reported today that many of Ahmadinejad's aides were accused of using 'supernatural powers', including invoking jinns (spirits) in an attempt to further the president's agenda against Khameini. This includes Irani Chief of Staff Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has blasted US President Barack Obama's Novruz message as an "insult" to the Iranian nation, questioning his understanding of values behind the internationally recognized cultural event. "Undoubtedly, your Novruz message is an insult to the Iranian nation. While threatening the Iranian nation in the message, you have again exposed your ugly pretense from behind the mask of deceit," said President Ahmadinejad, adressing a massive crowd in the western major city of Kermanshah.

A feature-length documentary film, produced by a top adviser to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, claims that the cataclysmic events that will usher in an era of Muslim world domination are about to begin, triggered by actions launched by Iran and its Lebanese ally, Hezbollah. Iran's Ahmadinejad repeatedly talks about the coming of the 12th imam, a Muslim messianic figure whose “reappearance” will make Islam victorious over the entire world. ... The film claims that the Hadith “map” leading up to the reappearance of the Mahdi includes the following way-points: * The United States and Western colonial powers will invade Iraq...

We can't overstate the importance of the English translation of this film: the Iranian leaders are telling the Muslim world to prepare for the annihilation of Israel and the fall of the West Several months ago, I was informed by my contacts in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard that the Basij had started work on a film that had the approval of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The purpose of the project: to inform Muslims across the globe of the immediate coming of the last Islamic messiah. As my English translation of the film makes clear (watch it exclusively at...

India's policy on Iran has been to maintain seemingly healthy but low-key relations, while conforming with UN Security Council Resolutions pertaining to Iran's nuclear development program... A senior Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) official notified PolCouns on April 15 that Iranian President Ahmadinejad will visit India on April 29. The official said she was providing the Embassy with this information prior to the MEA informing even other agencies within the Indian government, and before the information was to become public. She noted that Prime Minister Singh had rejected previous requests either to visit Tehran or for Ahmadinejad to visit India,...

Purim’s central message is particularly relevant today: The Jewish people should feel grateful for not always being on the receiving end of history’s tragedies. It has been falsely claimed of the late educator Ernst Simon (1899-1988) that he would intentionally avoid celebrating Purim. Uncomfortable with the idea that the Purim miracle included the killing of 75,000 enemies of the Jews, the traditional-minded Israel Prize laureate and co-founder of Brit Shalom purportedly would remain in Jerusalem on the 14th of the month of Adar (the day Purim is not celebrated in the capital) and go elsewhere on the 15th (the day...

The "company who purchased the car for 25 billion rials wanted to remain anonymous", it said after the auction in the south-western city of Abadan. "My client bought the car because of a personal interest in president Ahmadinejad and his spirit of anti-arrogance and anti-Zionism," said lawyer Mahmoud Esari, who acted for the firm that bought the car. SWO chairman Ahmad Esfandiari said more than 500,000 people registered on the bidding website, with most saying they were doing so because Mr Ahmadinejad leads a simple lifestyle.

"The world is on the verge of big developments. Changes will be forthcoming and will engulf the whole world from Asia to Africa and from Europe to North America," Ahmadinejad said. The tone of the remarks seemed to draw on the belief by Shiite Muslims that a revered ninth century saint known as the Hidden Imam, will reappear before judgment day to end tyranny and promote justice in the world. 'A wave that's coming' Ahmadinejad said the world was in need of a just system of rule that "puts an end to oppression, occupation and humiliation of people." "It's a...

When Saddam Hussein's tank battalions brutally invaded Kuwait in 1992, the United States was able to knock Saddam's Air Force out of the sky in a matter of days. In the subsequent tank battles the United States ruled the air. After kicking Saddam out of Kuwait we maintained a no-fly zone over half of Iraq for the next six years, thereby stabilizing the Gulf on both sides.  Where the USAF and USN ruled the skies Saddam could not launch a single plane or missile. The world's oil supply was protected, allowing European leftists to drive their cars at reasonable gas...

The Islamic Republic of Iran is run by evil megalomaniacs, starting with the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. They are intent on hastening the arrival of the 12th Imam, the latest in the succession of imams believed  by some Islamic Shiite fundamentalists to be the direct descendants of Prophet Muhammad and the carriers of his message on earth. The 12th Imam, named  Muhammad al-Mahdi, is said to have been born in present-day Iraq in 869 AD and is still alive, waiting to come out of hiding at the appropriate time.  Hence, his alternative name: the...

As the Middle East violence continues, we move on to Bahrain for a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Saudi forces are battling Shiite protesters in the streets. Naturally the media is misreporting this as government atrocities against democracy protesters. When actually it's another Sunni-Shiite civil war in another Sunni country with a Shiite majority. If this reminds you of Iraq, you're pretty close. Except that Bahrain is more like Dubai with its own royal family, a business culture built on its proximity to Iran, and much of the country is actually foreign workers brought in by oil revenues....

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad attacked Barack Obama on Friday, saying the American president "doesn't even know how to spell his own name properly." During a visit to Bushehr ahead of a scheduled rally in support of his regime, the Iranian leader said, "Obama wants to rule the world, but he can't even control his own emotions." Thousands of Iranians are expected to take to the streets after Friday prayers to show their support for the regime in Tehran and protest against opposition leaders Mir Hussein Moussavi Mehdi Karroubi. A statement issued by the regime in Tehran said, "The public will...

Iranian President Ahmadinejad is at it again, in a speech made this past Friday on the 32nd anniversary of the overthrow of the Shah, he spoke of a New Middle East spurred by the by the Egyptian revolution and hastened by the 12th Imam.This new Middle East would be free of the United States and Israel, as he warned Egyptians to be watchful of America’s “friendly face.” “We will soon see a new Middle East materialising without America and the Zionist regime and there will be no room for world arrogance (the West) in it,” Ahmadinejad told the cheering crowds...

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says Israel is a regime born out of “several hundred years of plotting” to provide the West with a stronghold in the Middle East. “Many Western colonialists who aimed to gain domination over Muslim nations … but failed to gain long-term and permanent control, effectively established a base in the region” through creating the Israeli regime, ISNA quoted Ahmadinejad as saying on Tuesday. The West is using Israel to “constantly sow discord among nations in the region in order to keep its grip over it,” he added. The remarks were made during a meeting with a...