re: #296 Killgore Trout

Good News: Ahmadinejad not doing well in election results
Bad News: His replacements are worse
Ahmadinejad faces political blows as rival hard-liners surge in parliament count

If the clerics are really in charge than it lets them put up and remove figureheads as necessary in order to manipulate the populace and foreign policy. Need to loosen up for a few years to lessen dissent - bring in a “reformer”. Need to crack down a bit afterwards, remove the “reformer” for corruption and bring in someone else. Same applies for pedaling hard-line or soft-line to the other ME countries, China, US, etc.