I recently came across an excellent bio by Abbas Milani in the Boston Review on reigning Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.  It’s a bit long, but well worth the read if you’re interested in a clear and thoughtful review of “modern” Iranian history, as well as the rise (and fall?) of it’s now infamous executive.  The article is especially prescient, when considering the recently released NIE on Iranian nuclear ambitions.  It covers many topics, but perhaps the most fascinating part of Milani’s analysis is in the distinctions between the pious populism of Ahmadinejad and the bourgeois, reformist rhetoric of Hashemi Rafsanjani:

Ahmadinejad’s conservatism quickly put him at odds with university students. In the early days of his presidency he planned to re-bury martyrs on university campuses, repeating his symbolic gesture as mayor of Tehran. Students rejected the idea and resisted vigorously, insisting on keeping university campuses free of religious iconography. Objecting to the idea afforded students an opportunity to show their dissatisfaction with the new president and his insistence on etching symbols of piety and martyrdom on the city landscape. The episode was one in a long series of confrontations between Ahmadinejad and university students who have been in the vanguard of the fight for justice and democracy.Iran’s social divisions were sharply captured in the 2005 presidential campaign. In a now famous film made by his campaign, Ahmadinejad is shown walking into a simple room in a humble house in a lower-middle-class city neighborhood. It is his family home. He sits cross-legged in front of a tablecloth on the floor. His wife appears, clad from head to toe in a black chador. His children, too, are shown exhibiting their father’s simplicity of style. The family is eating lunch; their manners are those of most Iranian working class or peasant families. The contrast with Rafsanjani’s campaign was glaring. In one ad, the candidate sits around a big oval table with young men and women, all dressed in fashionable, affluent, urban attire. One of the girls, a scarf barely covering her hair, complains about the lack of entertainment for youth; the camera then focuses on Rafsanjani, with tears of sympathy for her plight. While Rafsanjani was clearly appealing to society’s upper crust and its youth, Ahmadinejad, in all he said and did during the campaign, was appealing to the society’s poor and playing upon their anxieties and resentment about the revolution’s unfulfilled economic promises. He campaigned on a message of ending corruption and giving the poor an equitable share of the country’s oil wealth.

Ahmadinejad’s provincialism is another aspect of his populist appeal. Save for a brief trip to Austria many years ago, Ahmadinejad had not traveled outside of Iran before becoming president. (In this respect, as well as others, he bears striking resemblance to President George W. Bush. According to a popular joke in Iran, there are three things Bush and Ahmadinejad share: both came to power in contested elections, both talk to God, and neither speaks English.) His provincialism has begotten an arrogant swagger and a disdain not just for the West but also for Iranians who know the West or advocate closer ties with it. Compounding his willful insolence is his belief that God has chosen him to perform His will and that a divine force protects him. After returning from his second U.N. trip last year, he told a cleric that during his speech in the General Assembly he was protected by a sacred halo of light. He also recounted how God, to spite America, had fixed the unblinking eyes of all the world’s leaders on Ahmadinejad.

Ultimately, Ahmadinejad is the country boy who made good. As Milani explains, his economic policies have thus far been a disaster. He has nearly destroyed the nation’s banking industry, which will only get worse when coupled with the investment sanctions he has brought upon the nation from Europe. His anti-semitic rhetoric–a product of a fringe movement, even by Iranian standards–has raised concerns in Qom. However, his economic disasters aside, he still demonstrates a better understanding of retail politicking than any so-called moderate in the regime. He gets the pious and often reticent existence of the Iranian countryside, because it’s the story of his own life. With the latest NIE serving as a political victory for him, it’ll be interesting to see if Ahmadinejad can turn around his faltering presidency, and once again rally a frustrated Iran around nuclear development.