Silencing Ahmadinejad

CNN:

Six days after official election results awarded him victory in Iran's presidential elections and four days after he compared the putative losers to fans of a losing soccer team, unleashing a wave of fury in his country, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in a broadcast aired Thursday his remarks had been taken out of context.

"I was addressing those who started riots and set up fires and attacked people," he told the state-run news agency IRINN in an interview. "I said these [people] are nothing, they are not even part of the nation of Iran. They are alien in relation to Iran."

Ahmadinejad said that the official results, which gave him an overwhelming margin of victory that many Iranians are challenging as rigged, mean that "everybody is victorious ... We are a big family, and we have to put our hands together."

In Sunday's remarks to a rally at Vali-e Asr Square in Tehran, he said, "The Iranian nation is united. In a football match, there are 50,000 to 70,000 spectators. Those whose team has lost are angry and will do anything to vent their anger. Forty million people participated in the elections in Iran. They themselves were the players, and they determined [the outcome].

"Now four or five dirt or dust creeping from the corners may do something. But you must know that the pure river that is the Iranian nation will not allow them to put themselves on display."

His reference to unhappy Iranians as "dirt" or "dust" was seen by many as particularly galling, and he offered a qualified apology on Thursday. "I am sorry about the degree of accuracy of the news that some publicize," he said. "The very clear statement of the president is being distorted."

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Key religious conservatives have publicly complained of Ahmadinejad's treatment of the protesters in rallies demanding a new vote. Watch the latest from the streets of Tehran »

One of the critics was Habibolah Asgharoladi, a senior member of a key conservative voting bloc allied with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, which represents Tehran's influential bazaar merchant class. Asgharoladi has accused Ahmadinejad of treating the pro-Moussavi demonstrators improperly and urged him to treat them with more respect.

These developments marked an extraordinary rebuke to Ahmadinejad and a rare public airing of the existing rift among ruling conservatives. Watch report on conservatives' reaction »

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I think this explains why he was sent out of the country for awhile. For a guy who supposedly won a landslide election he has shown little ability to act like a winner with a mandate. Instead he insults his opponents and allows the brown shirts to beat and intimidate them as they seek a redress of grievances. No wonder the religious bigots in charge are upward delegating the response to the out pouring of anger at the "election."

We have the head Ayatollah, aka the "supreme leader" giving a long winded speech telling the protesters to go pound sand. The response to this speech will determine whether the rebellion that has been in evidence for the past week will fizzle and fade or whether the people will take to streets to rebuke the religious bigots. That response will be much more interesting than this tedious speech.