Tehran
Iran’s ayatollahs, conservative and moderate alike, are expressing displeasure with the bellicose behavior of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Two hard-line newspapers close to the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, admonished Ahmadinejad to use more “caution and diplomacy” in pursuing Iran’s right to develop nuclear power. The country’s most senior moderate cleric, Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, said Ahmadinejad was being needlessly provocative. The ayatollahs reportedly fear that the U.S. may be ready to attempt “regime change” as a way of blocking Iran’s nuclear ambitions. The U.S. recently sent a second aircraft carrier and a Patriot missile battalion to the Persian Gulf.
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