Middle East
Enfeebling Ahmadinejad: Iran’s President Downsized for Challenging the Ayatullah
How do you say "lame duck" in Farsi? (According to Google's translation service, the answer would be: ???? ???????) And in a twist worthy of Game of Thrones, less than two years after his disputed reelection and the brutal crackdown on opponents that followed, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been reduced to a ???? ???????. And that's just about where the clerical Supreme Leader Ayatullah Ali Khamenei -- who abandoned the political neutrality required of his office in 2009 to hail Ahmadinejad as the candidate whose views were closest to his own -- wants the president.