Fatemeh Rajabi, one of President Ahmadinejad most ardent defenders in the Iranian media, has announced that she is bidding farewell to politics. Rajabi is also the wife of Gholamhossein Elham, another tenacious supporter of the president, who acted as government spokesman during Ahmadinejad’s first term.
Azim Mahmoudabadi’s article for the Reformist daily Etemaad, points out that Rajabi is most famous for her book “The Miracle of the Third Millennium , the “miracle” in question was none other than Ahmadinejad himself. She penned the book after the Ahmadinejad’s unanticipated election victory in 2005.
However, since the beginning of Ahmadinejad’s second term and in particular since the president’s public falling out with the Supreme Leader, Rajabi has taken a back seat, where previously she had gone so far as to attribute Ahmadinejad’s management of the country to the 12th Imam of Shi’ite Islam, who Twelver Shi’is believe currently resides in Occultation, and will one day return to save humanity.
Mahmoudabadi writes scathingly: “Silence is not justifiable or logical from any point of view. Why if the praise, compliments, and acclaim were correct, even though now the life of the Ahmadinejad government is nearing its end, the very least expectation of yesterday’s backers of Ahmadinejad is that in these circumstances they don’t leave their “Third Miracle of the Millennium” alone. [Furthermore], that they bravely defend their statements expressing the righteousness of the president and his close circle – of course not from the Reformists, but from the side of the Principalists.”
“In the event that [Rajabi] after seven years has understood her mistakes regarding an individual [i.e. Ahmadinejad], again, the least expected is that she openly accepts her mistakes and in a logical way expresses regret over those mistakes and shows contrition.”
Etemaad also carries an interview with Fatemeh Rajabi in which she claims that her “silence is not from regret” over her one-time zealous support of the president. Rajabi also added that her silence had nothing to do with her husband, who appears to still be close to Ahmadinejad, and even accompanied the president on his most recent trip to New York for the UN General Assembly.
In other news
Deputy Speaker of the Majles, Mohammadreza Bahonar has sought to stop the simultaneous impeachment of a number of ministers, saying “up to now it has not been customary that the impeachment of a number of ministers be put forward”. At present the impeachment of the Minister of Agriculture is being debated on the Majles floor. The possible impeachments of the Ministers of Industry, Sport and Economy have all been aired in recent weeks.
Sadeq Larijani, head of Iran’s judiciary addressing special rapporteurs at the UN has stated: “In the Islamic Republic of Iran we absolutely do not have political executions and individuals executed were either illegal drug smugglers or protesters of the people’s life, livelihood and honour”.
Minister of Intelligence, Heydar Moslehi, has said that the “unknown soldiers of the 12th Imam”, read security services, “control the smallest anti-revolution movement” in the country. Moslehi has severely criticized the U.S. State Department’s delisting of the People’s Mojahedin of Iran (MEK), which Iranian officialdom simply referred to as “the hypocrites”. He accused the MEK of being responsible for the “assassination of 16,000 people” and said: “America and its accomplices must answer for these assassinations and anti-humanitarian actions”.
Farda News speculates in glowing terms on the prospect of Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, running in the June 2013 presidential election. Jalili has not yet announced whether he will enter the contest.
Foreign Affairs
Fars News reports that Iran is stepping up its design and manufacture of unmanned drones. This announcement comes after Seyed Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah admitted that his organization had assembled an Iranian made drone, which managed to enter Israeli airspace last week.
Mehr News reports on the meeting of President Ahmadinejad with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Baku, Azerbaijan. Most notably, Ahmadinejad said that the only solution to the on-going crisis in Syria is a “free election”.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Fatemeh Rajabi, gonapa.ws
Poster in support of Saeed Jalili’s presidential bid from the town of Quchan. baztab.net