Iran, elections and nuclear fuel

A rival of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected speaker of that country's parliament earlier this week.

The New York Times describes Ali Larijani as someone who is more conservative than Ahmadinejad, yet possibly more pragmatic in dealing with the West.

He is also a proponent of the country's nuclear development program, which would be totally even more unnecessary under Sam Nunn and Dick Lugar's proposal for Russia and the United States to lock down nuclear materials and assure nuclear-fuel services "both providing and removing the fuel needed for civilian nuclear energy."

Ahmadinejad's spats

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is getting in a lot of spats with his clerics. Is he a gaffe-prone loose cannon or trying to paint himself as a self-righteous advocate for women? Will he try to circumvent the mullahs and grab absolute power?

The latter seems unlikely, and that it is mere pompousness leading him to make gaffes in the religious radicals' eyes. Remember, this comes shortly after Ayman Al-Zawahiri's public chiding of him.