Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Hundreds of thousands of Iranian protesters defied authorities Monday and marched to Tehran's Freedom Square, as the Islamic Republic's supreme leader ordered an investigation into allegations of vote fraud, a move the opposition described as little more than an attempt to dampen anger over the reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Neither side can drown out the other. Both so far are exercising a measure of restraint. But as authorities try to rein in Iran's most serious unrest since the Islamic Revolution, they face a diverse opposition united in its rejection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his policies.

Iran's hard-line president on Thursday warned Israeli leaders of a "doomed end" but pointedly ruled out sending weapons to its ally Hamas or getting involved militarily in the conflict in the Gaza Strip. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also said his government welcomed "dialogue and having relations" with the U.S. after the inauguration next week of President-elect Barack Obama, who has said he is open to diplomatic contacts with Iran.

Iran watchers sought to make sense Monday of a spat between the conservative speaker of parliament and the country's hard-line president over a budgetary issue that found supreme leader Ali Khamenei issuing a rare but opaque opinion. The incident was the latest sign of discord within the Islamic Republic's byzantine ruling system, which combines elements of a democratically elected republic with a theocracy headed by Shiite Muslim clerics, with Khamenei superior to both.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Wednesday boasted that his country was nearing the "peak" of its efforts to unlock the secrets of the atom, and he again ruled out suspending the nuclear program. But another Iranian official revealed that Russia continues to withhold key equipment to get an almost-complete nuclear power plant near the Persian Gulf port of Bushehr up and running, evidence that Moscow retains important leverage with Tehran.

Hussein Athab visited Iran three times after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. The political science professor took in the religious sites and admired Iraq's bigger, richer and stronger Shiite Muslim neighbor to the east. But his esteem for Iran's government has since plummeted over what many here view as Iranian meddling and subversion in Iraq. "We thought Iran would extend the hand of friendship," said Athab, a Shiite.

Iran's president began a historic visit here Sunday, decrying the presence of foreign troops and subtly criticizing American allies. In meetings with Iraqi leaders, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad outlined his nation's plans to consolidate economic ties with Iraq, speaking within earshot of roaring U.S. helicopters taking off from Landing Zone Washington in the nearby Green Zone. Nearly five years after the U.S.

A confidant of Iran's top political and religious authority took a veiled swipe at the country's outspoken president in a sign of strain within the leadership over handling international opposition to the Iranian nuclear program.

We Americans are accustomed to regarding political rhetoric much as Dr. Johnson did epitaphs. "They are not," he wrote, "given under oath." In other words, we don't expect public men or women to speak the truth from public platforms. When it comes to our own parochial affairs, there's probably a bit of weary realism in that. However, this casual expectation of rhetorical hypocrisy has inhibited from the start our ability to recognize and deal with the threat posed by Islamist radicalism.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wishes the world a merry Christmas, even though he thinks much of it is in crisis because the West's "bullying, ill-tempered and expansionist" leaders have strayed far from Jesus' path. In a recorded message to air Christmas Day on Britain's Channel 4, Ahmadinejad praises Christianity but goes on to say that if Jesus returned to Earth, "he would fight against the tyrannical policies of prevailing global economic and political systems."