Ahmadinejad and Bush: The Nuclear Shadowboxers
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
By John Moody
TEHRAN, Iran — “If he’s convinced he’s right, he’s not going to change his mind, no matter what anyone says,” said the president’s friend. Though such assessments are frequently used to characterize President Bush, in this case it was a description of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Bush’s counterpart in Iran.
The friend in this case is Nasser Hadian-Jazy, an associate professor of political science at Tehran University, who has known Ahmadinejad since grade school, and has recently become a minor celebrity in the West because of his friend’s ascent to power.
“I wonder why more people haven’t noticed how much alike they are,” he says, speaking of the two leaders.
Though both men would deny it emphatically, the parallels between their presidencies are obvious and unavoidable. Each came to power in controversial elections, and each brought with him a new and decidedly conservative outlook on governing.
Each invokes the name of God frequently in speeches, a habit that has attracted the disdain of the country’s elite, while drawing the rock-ribbed, fundamentalist religious believers closer to him.
Each has made statements that ricocheted around the world and were variously interpreted as straight talk or heedless bellicosity, verging on war fervor.
Neither dresses with particular élan. And neither, to put it kindly, has a reputation for elegance in public speaking
This was an amusing article on Fox News that I thought you might enjoy. There does seem to be some similarity, but it's like in a bizarro way.
