[Fegasderty]

Two main reasons that Ahmadinejad was elected:

1. He was one of the (and perhaps only) non-mullah running for presidency.
2. He made many empty promises about "leaving the young alone..." and given that over 60% of the population is under 40, this was an important factor.

Ahmandinejad was not elected owing to his views about Israel, or Islamic ideas, although this is certainly what the media prefer to believe.

Despite what you may see on TV, the Iranians are increasingly becoming conscious about their "Iranian" identity rather than the imposed label of Islamic.

Many people have already criticised Ahmadinejad for his obsession about Palestine. "Are you our president or Palestine?" some people have said.

Ahmadinejad has deliberately started "fiddling" with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict to divert attention from his deeply troubled economical state.

Ahmadinejad doesn't even know the history of his own country. His ministers have had to repeatedly correct his speech errors.

Mottaki, his foreign minister, is a good example:
'Nobody can erase a country from the map.' Ahmadinejad was not thinking of the state of Israel but of their regime [...]. 'We do not accredit this regime to be legitimate.' [...] Mottaki also accepted that the Holocaust really took place in a way that six million Jews were murdered during the era of National Socialism."

Like many respected political and military analysts believe, I still say Iran and Israel are natural allies.

A nuclear Iran will only help Israel. Hard to believe, but those who need to know, know this well ;-)