.TEHRAN (Reuters) - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused President Barack Obama of behaving like his predecessor on Iran and called on him to apologize for what he called U.S. interference following the Iranian elections.
EDITORS' NOTE: Reuters and other foreign media are subject to Iranian restrictions on their ability to report, film or take pictures in Tehran.Obama has ramped up his previously muted criticism, saying he was "appalled and outraged" by a crackdown on protests which followed Ahmadinejad's disputed re-election.
"Mr Obama made a mistake to say those things ... our question is why he fell into this trap and said things that previously (former U.S. President George W.) Bush used to say," the semi-official Fars News Agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.
About 20 people have been killed in the demonstrations, but police and militia have flooded Tehran's streets since Saturday, quelling the majority of protests after the most widespread anti-government unrest since the 1979 Islamic revolution
Perhaps he means Obama's adopting of so many of Bush's war on terror policies? In other news its clear the regime has seen some rifts but that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has strengthend his hand:
Earlier, the BBC quoted Iranian newspapers as saying more than 100 legislators had failed to attend a victory celebration called by Mr. Ahmadinejad on Wednesday night. If confirmed, the news would provide further evidence of a significant split in the Iranian political elite over the way the authorities have handled protests in which the authorities have shown increasing readiness to put down the opposition with violence and arrests.
Indeed, the nation’s leadership cast anyone refusing to accept the results of the race as an enemy of the state. Analysts suggested that the unyielding response showed that Iran’s leaders, backed by the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had lost patience and that Iran was now, more than ever, a state guided not by clerics of the revolution but by a powerful military and security apparatus.Evidence suggests, moreover, that Mr. Ahmadinejad has filled security agencies with crucial allies.
“What has been going on since 2005 is the shift of the center of power from the clergy to the Pasdaran,” or the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, said a political analyst with years of experience in Iran who feared retribution if identified. “In a way one could say that Iran is no longer a theocracy, but a government headed by military chiefs.”
Security agents continued to fan out across the country, detaining former government officials, journalists, activists, young people and old, anyone seen as siding with those who reject the conclusion that Mr. Ahmadinejad won a landslide against Mr. Moussavi.
The official Iranian news agency reported that intelligence and security agents in Tehran concluded that a Moussavi campaign office was used for “illegal gatherings, the promotion of unrest, and efforts to undermine the country’s security,” leading to speculation that Mr. Moussavi could be arrested. The news agency reported that “the plotters have been arrested.”
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